HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AS PREDICTORS OF BUSINESS STUDIES TEACHERS’ WORK ENGAGEMENT IN EDO STATE

Abstract

The study has investigated the extent to which human resource management practices predicted business studies teachers’ work engagement. The main purpose of the study was to establish how human resource management practices (For example, recruitment and selection, training and development, and reward) predict business studies teachers’ work engagement in Edo State. Four hypotheses were formulated and tested at the 0.05 level of significance. The correlation survey design was adopted in the study. A total of 153 business studies teachers were sampled out of the 309 teachers in Edo State. The HRM and engagement scales were adapted and used for the study. Two experts in Business Education validated the instrument. The Cronbach Alpha was used in establishing the reliability for both scales, and they yielded: HRM = .81 and work engagement = .88. The instrument was distributed via Google Form to respondents. The regression analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that recruitment and selection, training and development, and reward individually predicted business studies teachers’ work engagement in Edo State. The finding also revealed that recruitment and selection, training and development, and reward jointly predicted the work engagement of business studies teachers in Edo State. Based on the findings, it was recommended that the government should ensure that the recruitment and selection process is fair to attract the most competent teachers who will be highly engaged in the job. This finding makes a novel contribution to the literature in HRM and Business Education by utilizing social exchange theory (SET) in explaining the reciprocal benefits in employer–employee relationships in the teaching sub-sector in Edo State