An Exploration of Contributing Factors of Student Fitness Employee Job Satisfaction in Campus Recreation

• Main Author: Davenport, John
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarly Commons 2020
• Subjects: Sports management; Higher education; Education; Higher Education; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Sports Studies
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/3673; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4664&context=uop_etds

This qualitative study explored what factors contributed to a student employee’s satisfaction with their job in the fitness sector of campus recreation. Campus recreation programs offer many on-campus jobs for students, with a focus on student development and community. Despite much research being done on job satisfaction, there is a noticeable gap when it comes to job satisfaction in campus recreation fitness. Findings from nine semi-structured phone interviews across three universities in California, Louisiana, and Mississippi have yielded three main elements: people, job qualities, and rewards. First, the findings indicated that supervisors, teammates, and patrons are the people that contribute to job satisfaction. Second, job qualities included job design and creativity. Third, rewards encompassed recognition, pay, and promotion and were a bit unpredictable in how they affect job satisfaction. Many of these themes paralleled previous research, while some more unique topics, such as the impact of patrons and creativity on job satisfaction, emerged. The findings of this research provide campus recreation fitness professionals with information on how to create a work environment that foster high job satisfaction. The study concludes with several recommendations that can be used to better understand the contributing factors of job satisfaction for student employees in campus recreation fitness programs.