Home and work demands and resources, social support and work-home interaction of Potchefstroom educators

Abstract

It is universally agreed that education is the key to success. In South Africa, this is evidenced by the effort that the government has put in ensuring that all citizens have equal access to public schools. Despite such effort, the Education System is still experiencing some difficulties in ensuring that those responsible for the provision of education are in good conditions to function optimally. Research has confirmed that educators are most likely to experience stress at work due to their increasingly high work demand and lack of resources to deal with those demands. Integrating their work and personal life can even be more stressful as obligations from both sphere requires them to have sufficient resources to handle such a pressure. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between job characteristics (job demands and resources) and negative and positive work-home interaction in Potchefstroom educators. A cross-sectional survey design was used. A random sample was taken from Potchestroom secondary and primary schools (iV=210). Age, gender, education, home situation and job situation were included as control variables. Two measuring instruments were administrated. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. The results obtained on the scales proved the measuring instruments to be reliable.