Stakeholder satisfaction with the provision of school psychological services in Zimbabwe

The study was aimed at investigating the level of principals and teachers’ satisfaction with the delivery of school psychological services by Educational Psychologists (EPs) in Zimbabwe. This investigation was prompted by observations of trends in international school psychology surveys that indicated that EPs wished to diversify their professional functioning by reducing the amount of time they spent in assessment activities and increasing the amount of time they spend in alternative roles. Currently there is little or no public empirical data in Zimbabwe on teachers and principals satisfaction with the services they are getting from EPs. This lack of adequate research on school psychological services may be preventing EPs from providing an equitable and efficient service. Eighty (80) school principals and 160 teachers were randomly selected from a list provided by the educational psychologists working with schools in four of the country’s ten administrative provinces. Two researcher-constructed questionnaires and a semi-structured interview schedule were administered to the stakeholders. The theory that steered this study was the gap model of service quality. The study employed a two group mixed exploratory design. Both the self-administered questionnaires and face-to-face interviews were used as a means of data collection. Interviews were conducted by the researcher from 5 to10 January 2012. The quantitative data processing was done electronically by computer using the IBM SPSS statistics 22. Chi-Square statistics, produced results from which discussions were derived. The Chi-Square tests done between the identified groups produced results showed statistical significant differences in satisfaction between male and female educators, qualifications and teaching experience of stakeholders. The results show that generally, teachers and principals are not satisfied with the provision of the psychological services. The prevalence of dissatisfaction seems also to be fairly randomly widespread among the stakeholders. The study concludes by making some recommendations for further research and structural changes to Schools Psychological Services and Special Needs Education (SPS & SNE) Department to improve school psychological service delivery to all stakeholders.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Zululand

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Kent, Dennis

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Nzima, D.R.
• Govender, S.

• stakeholder --schools --psychological services --Zimbabwe

Licence

• https://devspace.unizulu.ac.za/bitstreams/e1fbad73-001f-47fd-8284-e4dc0c1febe6/download