A STUDY OF THE JOB ATTITUDES (JOB SATISFACTION, ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT, AND CAREER COMMITMENT) AND CAREER ADAPTABILITY OF THE MEMBERS OF THE LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE PROFESSION

Catherine A. McCormick, Ph.D.

George Mason University, 2000

The following summary consists of revised excerpts from the dissertation study that was conducted in 1999-2000. The purpose of this summary is to inform the Maryland Library Association (MLA) and Virginia Library Association (VLA) membership of the results. Members and leaders of both associations generously contributed support, time, and information to the study. Because this is a brief summary of a lengthy study, information is condensed and presented without references. The literature review and discussion, as well as the statistical analyses are not included in this summary. Any questions should be directed to the author, who may be reached by e-mail: <cmccorm1@gmu.edu>.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between three job attitudes--job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and career commitment--and a developmental concept, “career adaptability”, among employed members of the library and information science profession from Virginia and Maryland. It is important to keep in mind that the researcher is not a member of the library and information science profession; instead the points of view come from the fields of career counseling and psychology. Any errors or inaccuracies regarding the library and information science profession are the responsibility of the researcher.

The methods employed in the study, an explanation of the variables, a description of the participants in the study as well as several of the most interesting significant effects are presented in this summary as follows. With a large number of variables, the study had the potential for 112 main statistical effects and many more interactive effects. Fifteen statistically significant main effects and eight statistically significant interaction effects were observed. Three additional statistically significant effects also were observed as a result of applying statistical controls for specific variables, such as the number of dependent children or adults.

Methods and variables

The study employed a demographic survey developed by the researcher, three standardized measures of job attitudes, (Job Descriptive Inventory and Job in General by P. Smith and her colleagues, 1969/1997 and 1985/1997; Organizational Commitment Questionnaire, short version by Porter and colleagues, 1976; G. J. Blau’s Career Commitment items), and a standardized measure of career adaptability, Adult Career Concerns Inventory by Donald Super and colleagues, 1978. (Complete references are included in the dissertation.)

Job satisfaction, the first of the three job attitudes measured in the current study, consists of six facets: satisfaction with work on present job, pay, supervision, opportunities for promotion, co-workers, and satisfaction with the job in general. Organizational commitment and career commitment are the other two job attitudes in this study. Organizational commitment is thought of as one’s loyalty to an employing organization (Ornstein and Isabella, 1990) and career commitment is defined as one’s commitment to a vocation or profession (Blau, 1985). Each of the three job attitudes was assessed with the standardized instruments as noted. With permission, all three of the job attitude measures were incorporated into the demographic survey form.

Career adaptability is a construct that describes career maturity in adults, more familiarly understood as progress through career stages in life. Career stage models usually include four major life stages: exploration, establishment, maintenance, and disengagement. Adaptability is operationalized in a measure of career "concerns" and tasks associated with each of the career stages in career theorist Donald Super's model of career development throughout life and was measured with the “Adult Career Concerns Inventory” (ACCI), a psychological instrument that was developed by the Donald Super and his colleagues in 1988. A table showing Super’s stages, tasks and a sample concern for each stage is included to illustrate the theory.

Super's Career Stages, Developmental Tasks, Concerns

STAGES	Exploration	Establishment	Maintenance	Disengagement
TASKS	Crystallization Specification Implementation	Stabilizing Consolidating Advancing	Holding Updating Innovating	Deceleration Retirement Planning Retirement Living
CONCERNS (Sample items)	Deciding what I want to do for a living.	Achieving stability in my occupation.	Identifying new problems to work on.	Planning well for retirement.

Career change status, type of library work setting, and work schedule were also examined in relationship to each of the job attitudes.

Career change status (likelihood of leaving the profession) was determined according to responses to the final question on the ACCI. Participants selected one of five responses, each representing one career change status option: 1. not considering career change; 2. considering career change; 3. planning to make a career change and choosing a new field; 4. selected a new field and trying to get started; or 5. recently made a job change and settling into the field.

Type of library work setting included six options: public libraries; school (K-12); postsecondary school libraries (including college, university, technical schools, community colleges); special libraries (including corporate, law, medical, prison, museum, government), and other (non-library settings).

Work schedule indicated the existence of a requirement for working on weekends and evenings in one’s normal work schedule. It was hypothesized that there would be differences in job attitudes between the librarians whose work schedule regularly included weekend and evening hours and the job attitudes of librarians who were not required to work weekend and evening hours. Work schedules were found to have almost no effect on librarians' attitudes towards their work. It is possible that the non-standard work hours of most librarians are accepted as a normal part of the profession and may even be seen as desirable by some librarians.

Description of the participants in the sample

The sample for this study (n= 367) was composed of members of state professional associations for library and information science professionals in Maryland or Virginia. Participants were self-selected from the membership of the Maryland Library Association and the membership of the Virginia Library Association. The two associations approved different ways of approaching their members. Members of the MLA were randomly selected to receive a letter of request from the researcher from a mailing list for its 1200 members. VLA members received the request at their annual conference and through an association newsletter insert.

Two hundred and ninety six members of the MLA and 142 members of the VLA agreed to participate in the study by returning a postcard or sending an e-mail message to the researcher. Of the 438 who agreed to participate, 388 return completed surveys. Twenty-one of the surveys were not included in the analysis because data was incomplete or the individual was unemployed or fully retired. The survey forms were anonymous. Due to a design flaw, completed surveys did not include a way to identify MLA or VLA membership. Therefore the number of MLA and VLA participants who actually submitted completed surveys is not available. It is believed to approximate the same number of members from each organization that agreed to participate.

Table of descriptive data for study participants

Gender		Female = 87%						Male = 13%
Age		Range of ages = 19-71						Average age = 47
Education		High school = 3.4% Undergraduate degree = 12.9% MLS or working on MLS = 54.8% Non-MLS master’s or doctoral degree = 5.9% Two graduate degrees or one grad. degree and one certificate = 17.8%
Ethnic Background			White = 87%						Non-White = 13%
Marital Status			Married = 77%						Not married = 23%
Work Schedules			Worked weekend/evening hours = 66%						Did not regularly work weekend/evening hours = 34%
Dependent children and/or adults							No or no response = 57% Yes =43% 1= 15.2% 3= 4.7% 2= 19.6% 4= 1.0%
Average tenure in field					16 years			Range = 6 months to 42 years
Salary	Average range = $40,000-$54,000					45% of participants earned $30,000-$54,000				Total range = less than $19,000 to $70,000 and up
Career Change Status				Not considering career change = 62% Considering career change = 18. 6% Planning to make a career change = 3. 9% Selected new field = 3. 9% Have made career change = 6. 5%
Library work setting				Public library = 49.6% School (K-12) library = 6.2% Postsecondary library = 27.6% Special library = 8.3% Other (non-library setting) = 3.1%

Job titles were categorized into sixteen groups by the researcher. Three senior librarians then approved the sixteen categories. A complete list of job titles and categories can be found in the dissertation.

Research Questions

The study included three research questions.

1. Is there a relationship between each of the three measurable job attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and career commitment) and career adaptability (adult career maturity as measured by the Adult Career Concerns Inventory, ACCI, and expressed as thecareer concerns that are associated with one of four stages in one's career), among members of the library and information science profession?

2. Are job attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, or career commitment) or career adaptability in members of the library and information science profession significantly affected by the type of library work setting, by work schedules, or by career change status?

3. Are job attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, or career commitment) or career adaptability in members of the library and information science profession significantly affected by differences in age, number of dependent children or adults, professional tenure, average number of hours worked per week, gender, ethnic background, marital status, education, job title category, or salary range?

Results

I. Career adaptability

Career adaptability (explained as progress through career stages, including recycling through stages with career change, and measured with the ACCI) was observed to have statistically significant relationships with satisfaction with pay; satisfaction with the job in general; and organizational commitment.

For this sample of library and information science professionals, the study confirmed that completion of the tasks and resolution of the concerns associated with the exploration, establishment, and maintenance stages of career development were associated with significantly different levels of satisfaction with job in general and with organizational commitment.

For satisfaction with job in general and organizational commitment, scores on both measures were lowest for the participants whose career concerns are associated with the exploration stage. The levels of satisfaction and commitment were higher for groups in the establishment and maintenance stages. For the group whose concerns were associated with the disengagement career stage, the levels of satisfaction with the job in general and organizational commitment were lower than that of the maintenance and establishment stage groups, but still higher than the scores for the exploration stage group.

The pattern of increasing satisfaction with job in general and commitment to an organization in the current study is consistent with Super's conception of an evolving self. In the exploration stage, one's job and employing organization are new and, theoretically, the self-concept is either in early development or adjusting to the process of recycling through career stages. In the two subsequent stages, if the career and job are satisfactory, scores for these two attitudes could be expected to increase. In the disengagement stage workers are occupied with planning for retirement and disengaging from jobs, organizations, and relationships with co-workers; therefore they may naturally express less satisfaction and commitment.

Scores representing satisfaction with pay are highest, and almost identical, for the groups of participants whose career concerns are associated with the establishment and disengagement stages. The lower scores for those in the maintenance stage suggests that while dealing with the developmental tasks of innovating and updating, a library professional may have expectations of higher salaries. Dissatisfaction with pay is reported in other studies of the profession (Houdyshell et al., 1999; St. Lifer, 1994; Singer Gordon et al., 1999). In the current study, the mean score for satisfaction with pay is the second lowest of the job satisfaction scores. The dissatisfaction may be especially acute after a librarian has established a career in the field by obtaining the appropriate credentials and devoting a number of years to the work. The completion of an MLS degree appears to have a significant effect on salary. For the three highest salary ranges ($40,000-$54, 999; $55,000-$69,999; & $70,000 and up) 70%, 68%, and 60% of the librarians in these three ranges, respectively, had earned the MLS degree.

Additional analysis of the concept of career adaptability was conducted using a statistical procedure that controls for differences among participants who had different numbers of dependent children or adults. In this analysis, career adaptability was observed to have a statistically significant relationship with satisfaction with work on the present job, satisfaction with job in general, and organizational commitment.

Satisfaction with work on the present job, in this analysis, with statistical control for the effect of the number of dependent children or adults, was highest for participants whose career concerns were associated with the maintenance stage and lowest or for participants whose career concerns were associated with the exploration stage. The pattern of relationships to career stage was the same for the maintenance, exploration, and disengagement stage results as it was with the analysis that did not employ control for dependent children or adults. Satisfaction for the participants in the establishment stage was much lower in the procedure that controlled for the number of dependents than in the procedure without the control. This could indicate that the number of dependents has a greater effect on persons when they are in the process of establishing a career and dealing with the developmental tasks of stabilizing, consolidating, and advancing than when they are in other career stages.

Examination of the simple relationship between satisfaction with work on the present job and the number of dependent children or adults revealed that satisfaction increased sharply when scores for persons with zero dependent children or adults was compared with scores for persons with one dependent. Scores between groups with two and three dependents were quite similar. Satisfaction was greater, higher than for the groups with two or three dependents, for the group with four dependents. However, the number of participants in the current study with three or four dependents was small, 18 and four, respectively. It would be interesting to examine the reasons for the increase in satisfaction that accompanied increased responsibility. It is possible that the reasons were related to the workers' needs for balance between work and family as family responsibilities increased.

Scores for satisfaction with job in general (JDI6) were significantly affected by career adaptability in both types of analysis, with and without statistical control for number of dependent children or adults. With control for number of dependents, the scores were slightly lower for the group whose career concerns were associated with the establishment stage than the scores of the participants in the maintenance stage. Overall the pattern of scores (with controls), for satisfaction with job in general, was quite similar to the pattern of results without controls: low for participants in the exploration stage, lower for participants in the disengagement stage, and highest for participants in the maintenance stages. In contrast to the scores for satisfaction with work on the present job, the scores for satisfaction with job in general decreased as the number of dependent children or adults increased through three children or adults.

Career adaptability was significantly related to organizational commitment in both types of analysis, with and without controls for the number of dependent children or adults. The patterns of organizational commitment by stage were similar to the patterns for satisfaction with job in general. The highest scores resulted for the participants who were in the maintenance stage and lowest for those in the exploration stage, in both analyses. As the number of dependents increased from one to two, organizational commitment scores increased sharply. They remained high but decreased slightly for the librarians who reported having three rather than two children or adults. A larger decrease of the scores occurred between three and four dependent children or adults but it was a smaller decrease than the decrease that appeared for satisfaction with job in general. Further exploration of the implications of this result regarding number of dependent children or adults may be relevant to research on other work and family issues.

II. Career change status

Question 61 of the ACCI asks about career change status and is also known as Super's "recycling item." Career change status is an indication of an individual’s preference for staying in, or leaving, their current career field. Responses to this ACCI item contribute different insights about an adult's career development than do the responses to the first 60 items on the instrument. The fact that every participant in this study responded to question 61 supports the idea that career change status has an impact on other attitudes and that the topic of career change status is one that people consider carefully in this era of frequent workplace upheaval.

Statistically significant relationships were observed for career change status and satisfaction with work on the present job, satisfaction with supervision, satisfaction with the job in general, organizational commitment, and career commitment. All five career change status groups had similar scores for both types of satisfaction in the maintenance stage. A singular difference appeared in the disengagement stage. The librarians who had selected a new field and were in the disengagement stage expressed very low satisfaction with job in general. The explanation for this pattern may be that these librarians were not able to make the career change into the field they had selected, despite the fact that they felt very little general satisfaction with their current job. The result may have been disappointment during the disengagement stage.

Persons who were not considering career change, persons who were considering career change, persons who had selected a new field, and persons had already made a career change varied little across career stages in their scores for satisfaction with job in general. This pattern of similarity between persons who were not considering career change and persons who had changed careers confirmed the findings of Smart and Peterson (1997). The authors found that these two groups had higher satisfaction with their present job and overall job satisfaction than the groups representing the other three career change statuses. The same findings appeared in the current study, suggesting that career change status had relevance for job attitudes. Smart and Peterson pointed out that it is the other three groups, those persons who are considering a career change, planning a career change, and selecting a new field, that may have the highest levels of stress and the greatest need for reinforcement of their career exploration activities in counseling.

In the current study persons whose career change status could be described as planning to make a change, depending on their career stage, had significantly different satisfaction levels of satisfaction with work on the present job (the actual tasks, responsibilities, and content of the position). While in the maintenance career stage, adults are dealing with the tasks of holding, updating, and innovating. For the librarians in the maintenance stage who planned to make a career change, satisfaction with work on the present job was greater than it was if the person was dealing with the tasks and concerns of three other stages (exploration, establishment, and disengagement stages). Readers will recall that the developmental tasks for the establishment stage are stabilizing, consolidating, and advancing, the developmental tasks for the exploration stage are crystallization, specification, and implementation, and the developmental tasks for the disengagement stage are deceleration, retirement planning, and retirement living.

Career change status, in interaction with career stage, had a statistically significant effect on satisfaction with work on the present job and satisfaction with job in general. Persons in the exploration stage had a wide spread of scores for both types of satisfaction. The lowest scores for both types of satisfaction were associated with planning to change careers and the highest were associated with having made a career change, in the exploration stage. The establishment stage group showed some differences between the two types of satisfaction across career change statuses. For satisfaction with work on the present job, the librarians in the establishment stage who planned to change careers had the lowest of all scores. In the same stage, librarians who planned to change careers had higher satisfaction with the job in general. It is possible that the distinction exists in the differences between everyday tasks and the global perspective on the position. One may be planning to change because he or she dislikes the daily routine, but may have a different evaluation of the job in general when they consider other valued factors. An example of this situation may be a librarian who wanted to change settings (for example, from public to special) because they wished to be more involved in the systems analysis aspect of library work as an alternative to patron services.

Two observations can be made as a result of this significant interaction. The first is that the dynamics of career change status and career stage are independent. It is possible for a person to function in a career that they plan to leave and still have a significant level of satisfaction with the work on the present job, if they are progressing through the career stages and dealing successfully with the tasks of each stage. The conscious decision to change careers may be the outcome of self-concept development. Super's concept of progression through career stages was based on growth through the evolution of self-concept (Swanson and Fouad, 1999). In this interaction we observe that the group of participants whose career concerns are associated with the maintenance stage have evolved sufficiently in their self-concept development to simultaneously deal with the tasks of the maintenance stage and planning for a career change. In plainer terms, the maintenance stage group may have greater self-confidence than that of fellow participants who have not yet completed the developmental tasks of previous stages. Thus, they (those in the maintenance stage) may have been comfortable enough with themselves to experience more satisfaction with work on the present job, despite the fact that they planned to make a career change.

The significance of career change status with respect to satisfaction with work on the present job demonstrated that two groups, persons who were not considering a career change and persons who had made a career change, had higher satisfaction with work on the present job than all other participants. Two other groups, persons who were considering a career change and persons who had selected a new field, had almost identical scores on satisfaction with work on the present job and their scores were higher than the group with the lowest satisfaction score of all, persons who were planning to make a change.

The pattern for distribution of scores across career change status groups showed the participants who were not considering a career change or had made a career change usually had the highest satisfaction scores. These two groups were satisfied because of their decisions not to change careers or their having already made changes. This finding was replicated several times in the current study. More similarity appeared between the participants who had already made a change or were not considering a change than between any two other groups in the study.

For satisfaction with supervision, participants who were considering a career change or were planning to make a change had similar and very low scores. For satisfaction with job in general, the same two groups as well as the group who had selected a new field displayed very low and very similar scores. With organizational commitment, the lowest scores occurred in the group that was planning to make a change and slightly higher scores occurred in the group that was considering a career change. The scores for the group who had selected a new field had scores that were similar to the group who was not considering a career change with both falling below the highest scorers, those who had made a career change.

It is possible to conclude that lack of interest in career change or completion of a career change had the effect of strengthening satisfaction with work on the present job, satisfaction with supervision, satisfaction with job in general, and both organizational and career commitments, in some participants. The two career change statuses described as considering career change and planning change was associated with lower levels of the satisfaction and commitment in this sample of librarians.

III. Library Work Setting

The type of library work setting (public, school, postsecondary, special, and other/non-library) was observed to have significant relationships with satisfaction with supervision, organizational commitment, and career commitment. Type of library setting and work schedule interacted to have an effect on satisfaction with supervision and also on career commitment.

In this study the school librarians in this study expressed the highest satisfaction with supervision, followed by public, post-secondary, special, and other librarians. Discussion of the significance of work setting with respect to satisfaction with supervision does not appear to be addressed elsewhere in the literature of library and information science. One might speculate that the school librarians as a group may have a strong desire to work with students in kindergarten through grade 12 and it is possible that these school librarians valued autonomy and supervision within the school system hierarchy. It is possible that many supervisors of school librarians may not be librarians, but instead were principals or other administrators. Public librarians are likely to have just the opposite situation with supervision and theirs is the second highest satisfaction score for supervision in the study. In public libraries, there are usually many librarians and oversight by a county, town, or other government organization. There must be additional explanatory factors affecting satisfaction with supervision in the special and other library settings. The current study did not assess, for example, personality variables or differences in organizational structure that could inform the differences in this set of scores.

Type of library work setting affected levels of organizational commitment and career commitment as well. The patterns of commitment that were associated with type of work setting were very different with regard to organization and career field. For organizational commitment this group of librarians expressed lowest levels of commitment in post-secondary and special libraries; highest levels of commitment were associated with school and other settings. Public librarians' organizational commitment levels appeared between the high and low scoring groups. In speculating about the low commitment in post-secondary and special library settings, one might think about the fact that library work is critical to the work of both types of institutions but not as the main function of the organization. It is possible to speculate that librarians in these settings may feel marginalized or taken for granted because theirs is not the primary function of the organization, or they may be devalued, despite the importance of the work. Librarians in corporations may not directly contribute to the bottom line or primary mission of the company and so they may also feel like the proverbial second-class citizens. There is no evidence for these speculations but there could be some validity to them. For organizational commitment, the librarians in “other” settings displayed the highest levels of organizational commitment, possibly having made a career change to a different kind of organization than a traditional library.

IV. Career commitment

Career commitment scores were, as measured with the instrument used in this study, very low in this sample of librarians. There may be reasons for that in the instrument itself and we suggest using multiple measures of career commitment in future studies. The lowest of the low scores in this sample occurred in the “other”, non-library, settings. That makes intuitive sense if a librarian left the library setting to work elsewhere, whether as a librarian or as a result of a career change. The scores for the other four groups of librarians were similar scores. As discussed in the dissertation literature review, additional work needs to be done to separate the career commitment concept from other job attitudes.

V. Work schedules

Work schedules that regularly included weekend and evening hours had a significant effect only on career commitment. However, in interaction with work setting, work schedule had a significant effect on satisfaction with supervision.

Librarians in this sample who did not regularly work weekend and evening hours had higher levels of career commitment than librarians who regularly worked weekend and evening hours. Work schedules did not have a significant effect on satisfaction with work on the present job, satisfaction with pay, satisfaction with opportunities for promotion, satisfaction with supervision, satisfaction with co-workers, satisfaction with job in general, or organizational commitment.

Work setting and work schedule had an interactive effect on satisfaction with supervision and career commitment. Librarians in special libraries and in other, non-library settings, whose schedules regularly included weekend and evening hours, had significantly lower levels of satisfaction with supervision and career commitment than did librarians in public, school, or post-secondary libraries. It may be more common in public, school, and post-secondary libraries to serve patrons on weekends and evenings than in special libraries or other work settings. Over two thirds of the sample reported that they regularly worked weekends and evening hours. As a service and educational profession, it is common for librarians to have such a schedule. The existence of such a schedule may have more impact on librarians' attitudes in settings where weekend and evening hours are not as common, e.g., corporate or government libraries, publishers, human resource training departments. It is possible that librarians selected the special and other settings because there was less likelihood of regular service to patrons during evening and weekend hours.

VI. Education

Education had a statistically significant effect on satisfaction with opportunities for promotion. Predictably for this profession, the MLS degree had the greatest effect on satisfaction with opportunities for promotion. From informal conversations with librarians throughout the study it became clear that there are differences in salary and positions for librarians with and without the MLS. One of the participants expressed the dilemma best when she wrote:

“Part of the job frustration for people who are library assistants in public libraries rests in Virginia legislation. The code states that in the public library (but not school, law, or university) without a (MLS) degree, one cannot gain the title of Librarian. I defacto work as the children's librarian in my branch. I do not get the salary or the title, and no one finds this unethical. I find it disturbing. The party line is: 'If you are unhappy here, perhaps you should find a job elsewhere). I am sure I am not the only one out there who experiences this type of discrimination. It can certainly lead to job dissatisfaction, no matter how strongly one feels about doing a good job, or liking their job."

Satisfaction with opportunities for promotion appears to be related to having the MLS degree. One other group, with two graduate degrees or a graduate degree and a certificate, was the only group of participants that had higher satisfaction with opportunities for promotion than the librarians with the MLS degree. The differences were small. Some members of this group with graduate degrees other than the MLS had advanced to administrative roles in a variety of library settings. Interestingly, the high school educated members of the sample had higher levels of satisfaction with opportunities for promotion than the participants with non-MLS masters or doctoral degrees or undergraduate degrees. It is possible that these few high school educated respondents were advanced on a different, non-librarian, "track" when their current jobs were support or assistant positions. The non-MLS graduate degree group earned considerably less, even if they had a doctorate in another field. According to the current study results, if a librarian had two degrees, even if neither was an MLS, they appeared to have been able to advance more satisfactorily than those librarians who had only one non-MLS graduate degree.

VII. Salary

Salary had a statistically significant effect on satisfaction with pay. This effect was expected and followed a predictable pattern of increasing satisfaction with increasing ranges of salary, except for the persons whose salaries were in the range of $20,000-$29,999. Their satisfaction with pay was lower than their lower-paid counterparts who earned less than $19,999. The explanation for that was the predominance of part-time librarians in the lowest salary range. It is likely that the part-time group were satisfied with their low salary because they had other reasons for working part-time, perhaps related to family commitments.

Salary had a significant main effect on career commitment that resulted from the dramatically lower level of commitment for the participants in the highest salary range. Groups of participants earning salaries in the five lower salary ranges had almost identical scores for career commitment. The reasons for low levels of career commitment among participants in the highest salary range remain unclear. It is possible that the group as a whole was interested in changing careers or that their satisfaction with the career field was diminishing as their tenure increased. If so, their lack of commitment could reflect their work on disengaging from the career or their worries about adequate retirement income.

Education and salary had a statistically significant interactive effect on satisfaction with opportunities for promotion. The unusual effects in this interaction were for the few participants who had the least education yet earned high salaries. It is possible that their longevity in particular types of institutions yielded high salaries over time. The lowest paid group, including some part-timer workers, expressed high levels of satisfaction with opportunities for promotion, despite low salaries, especially for those who had two graduate degrees or a graduate degree and a certificate. With such a limited sample it would be hard to claim that there is more equity in the workplace regarding part-time workers in terms of promotion opportunities, but the question arises in light of these results. Of the group with the lowest salary range, the same pattern regarding MLS vs. non-MLS degreed librarians was observed. Though the lower paid librarians with two degrees or one degree and a certificate showed high satisfaction with opportunities for promotion, as did their colleagues with MLS degrees, there was lower satisfaction among the group members with non-MLS degrees.

Education and salary had a statistically significant interactive effect on organizational commitment. As seen in other results, the organizational commitment of this sample was, on average, above the midpoint for the scale. The differences between groups, though significant, are few. Notably, the persons with high school education and a salary range of $55,000-$69, 999 had organizational commitment scores that were lower than all other groups, with a mean of 3.1 on a range of one through seven. The other group that had unusual scores was the group of librarians earning less than $19,999 with two graduate degrees or a graduate degree and a certificate. Again, this group included part-time librarians who may have expressed greater commitment because they had desirable part-time work arrangements.

VIII. Gender and Marital status

There was a significant interactive effect observed with gender and marital status for satisfaction with pay. While there were almost no differences in satisfaction with pay between married females, unmarried females, and married males; unmarried males in this sample had extremely low scores for satisfaction with pay. The mean for unmarried males was 10.62 on a scale of zero to 54. The sample of unmarried males was small (n = 9) and contributing factors, such as education, may have had an effect on satisfaction with pay. Five of the nine single men had MLS degrees and two others had two graduate degrees or a graduate degree and certificate. Four of them worked in public libraries and four worked in post-secondary libraries while the ninth worked in one of the non-library settings. It is possible that these librarians had not yet obtained their desired position or a work schedule that was accompanied by satisfactory pay.

There was a significant interactive effect observed with gender and marital status and satisfaction with opportunities for promotion. Unmarried males expressed very low satisfaction with opportunities for promotion. Single females had the highest level of satisfaction, followed by married males, and married females. Further investigation to describe the unmarried males in this sample would be informative and might reveal whether there are reasons in the culture of the profession that unmarried males had pessimistic expectations regarding opportunities for promotion and salary levels.

Conclusions

The current study described the job attitudes and individual career development of a 367-member group of library and information science professionals from two states. The results of the study add new and support existing information in the research literature on these issues in a limited manner. The dissertation includes much more discussion of the relevant literature and the implications of the study further research and for career counselors.