An urban vs. rural job satisfaction comparison: state-federal based vocational rehabilitation counselors

Abstract

According to Hultaker (1977), job satisfaction is a characteristic that has been studied for many years. The relationship between job satisfaction and professional agencies has been determined to be important for many different reasons. According to Gruneberg (1976), job dissatisfaction can lead to many negative results for employers. Some of these results are: costly employee turnover, absenteeism, strikes, ignoring safety standards, and decreased motivation for performing high quality work. As a result of the impact of job satisfaction, a well-defined understanding of the job satisfaction level of employees can be extremely beneficial to any employer. The purpose of this research was to increase the knowledge base of the job satisfaction levels of Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors in rural and urban locations in the state-federal based Vocational Rehabilitation system in a Midwestern state. The subjects of this study included every practicing Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor in the DVR system of a specific Midwestern state. The specific research objectives are the following: to investigate the current overall levels of job satisfaction of DVR Counselors in a specific state and to investigate if there is a difference in the levels of DVR Counselors in rural vs urban locations. The data will be collected through the use of the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire. The surveys collected information of job satisfaction, gender, and identification of urban or rural location of practice. There were 202 qualified participants, of which 105 chose to participate. The results of this study showed that the overall job satisfaction of Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors is at a level of average satisfaction. However, there were some components of job satisfaction that showed trends of being in the level of dissatisfied and some components that consistently showed numbers of being satisfied. Also, there were no significant differences found between the job satisfaction levels of urban and rural Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors.