The Relationship Between Personal Characteristics and Morale of Special Education Teachers in West Bank- Palestine

The purpose of the study was to define the relationship between the Personal Characteristics and the Morale level of Special Education Teachers in West Bank - Palestine. It also aimed at defining the effect of social status, experience, educational level, salary, types of retardation and the supervising authority. The population of the study consisted of all special education teachers in West Bank. The researcher used Eysenck Personal Inventory and another instrument about morale developed by (Salamah , 1995) . In order to insure the validity of the two instruments , the researcher choose (12) persons as a jury of specialists from An-Najah and Beir Zait Universities. The reliability of the instruments was calculated by using Cronbach Alpha formula and it was (0.82) and (0.88). To answer the questions of the study, the researcher calculated means, standard deviations and percentages. He also used Repeated MANOV A, Wilks Lambda and Sidak tests. The results of the study showed the followings: 1. Most special education teachers in West Bank tend to have characteristics of introversion and emotion personality, and few of them tend to have the characteristics of extraversion and stability personality. 2. There were no statistical differences between types of special education teachers personalities , due to the variables of ( social status , experience , educational level , and salary) . In the same time there were statistical differences in their types of personalities due to the types of handicapped that work with, and the supervising authority they work in. 3. Special education teachers had a Jow level of morale in general, in West Bank. 4. There were no statistical differences in the teachers levels of morale according to the variables of social status, experience and the educational level. In the same time , there were statistical differences in their morale levels according to the variables of salary , types of retardation and the supervising authority. 5. There were statistical differences (α = 0.05 ) between the special education teachers morale dimensions in favour of the relationship with colleagues. 6.There was no statistical relationship between special education teachers' personal characteristics and their morale . In the light of these results, the researcher recommended the followings: • Palestinian Ministry of Education should be responsible of taking care of special education teachers like the rest of school teachers in Palestine. • Increasing the special education teachers salary according to their big efforts. • Improving the physical environment of special education programs for children with special needs such as large buildings, classrooms, and playgrounds. • Using special standards developed by special needs authorities ill order to choose the effective special education teachers. • Conducting more research studies highly related to people who are working with children of special needs.