Off-Site Team Retreat Practices and Teacher Job Satisfaction among Public Secondary Schools in Teso North Sub County, Kenya
Abstract
One strategy used by organizational leaders to encourage group thinking and produce favorable results is team building among staff members. Off-site retreats and other recreational programs run by the school administration are some of the essential practices that improve instruction and learning for the benefit of the kids. However, little research has been done on how these strategies affect teachers' job satisfaction in various contexts, particularly in Kenya's Teso North Sub County, which has recently seen teacher attrition and poor academic achievement. The impact of off-site retreat practices on teachers' job satisfaction in public secondary schools in Teso North Sub County of Busia County, Kenya, was the aim of this study. The study was guided by Walberg's Theory of Educational Productivity, which emphasizes the various factors influencing learning and academic success. Under the positivist paradigm, a descriptive survey design was used with 36 principals, 44 deputy principals, 44 senior masters, 218 class teachers, and six ward education officers as the target population. A sample size of 19 principals, 24 deputy principals, 24 senior masters, and 117 class instructors who were chosen by simple random selection was calculated using Taro Yamane's formula. Principals and teachers were given a questionnaire, and all ward education officers were interviewed for the study. Quantitative data were analyzed using both inferential statistics (regression analysis) and descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation). Narration was used to present the thematically analyzed qualitative data. The study found that school administrators' off-site retreat policies had affected teachers' job satisfaction over time (M=3.56; SD=.785). Off-site retreats were observed to cause improvements in teacher job satisfaction of 329 units (β=.329). Practices for off-site retreats should be customized to meet the unique needs and preferences of various educators.
Downloads
References
2. Azovide, Y. and Bouchamma, Y. (2021) Teacher Supervision in the Context of Linguistic Diversity in OECD Countries. Creative Education, 12, 1103-1117. doi: 10.4236/ce.2021.125082.
3. Bailey, A. K., Sawyer, A. T., Tao, H., Durr, L., Lajeunesse, A., Sabapathy, R., & Hall, T. L. (2023). Evaluating the feasibility and impact of a well-being retreat for physicians and advanced practice providers. Journal of Wellness, 5(1), 9.
4. Baroudi, S., Tamim, R., & Hojeij, Z. (2022). A quantitative investigation of intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing teachers’ job satisfaction in Lebanon. Leadership and policy in schools, 21(2), 127-146.
5. Borgholthaus, C. J., Bourgoin, A., Harms, P. D., White, J. V., & Fezzey, T. N. (2025). Surveying the upper echelons: An update to Cycyota and Harrison (2006) on top manager response rates and recommendations for the future. Organizational Research Methods, 10944281241310574.
6. Buck, A. M. (2024). A phenomenological study: The academic experiences of low-socioeconomic-status ESL learners enrolled in a mid-sized urban community college. Unpublished doctoral dissertation submitted to Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA.
7. Burić, I., & Kim, L. E. (2021). Job satisfaction predicts teacher self-efficacy and the association is invariant: Examinations using TALIS 2018 data and longitudinal Croatian data. Teaching and Teacher Education, 105, 103–406.
8. Chelghoum, A. (2024). Unveiling respondents’ collaboration in online questionnaire responses. ALTRALANG Journal, 6(2), 377-388.
9. County Government of Busia (2025). Academic performance for Busia County (2024). Busia Government Report.
https://www.scribd.com/document/868784726/BUSIA-ACADEMIC-REPORT-2024.
10. Eric, M. I., Kipkenei, D. S., & Obino, D. P. (2025). The effect of parental economic status on students' academic performance in public day secondary schools in Busia County, Kenya. Iconic Research and Engineering Journal, 8(12), 1042 –1045.
11. Galizty, R. C. M. F., & Sutarni, N. (2021). The effect of student resilience and self-regulated learning on academic achievement. Pedagonal: Journal Ilmiah Pendidikan, 5(2), 62- 69.
12. Imo, I. E., Kipkenei, S.,, Obino, P., and Khaemba, P. F. (2024). Socio-cultural factors affecting academic job satisfaction in Busia County, Kenya. International Journal of Science and Research Archive, 13(02), 2554–2562.
13. Ivankova, N., & Wingo, N. (2018). Applying mixed methods in action research: Methodological potentials and advantages. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(7), 978-997.
14. Locke, E. A., and Lathan, G. P. (2012). Theory of goal setting and task performance. Englewood Cliffs, N. J: Prentice- Hall.
15. Malvicini, P., & Serrat, O. (2017). Conducting successful retreats. Knowledge Solutions, 847- 851.
16. Mursa, R. A., Patterson, C., McErlean, G., & Halcomb, E. (2025). How many is enough? Justifying sample size in descriptive quantitative research. Nurse researcher, 33(2).
17. Naidoo, D., Schembri, A., & Cohen, M. (2018). The health impact of residential retreats: a systematic review. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 18(1), 8.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-017-2078-4.
18. Nunnally, J. C. (1978). An overview of psychological measurement. Clinical diagnosis of mental disorders: A handbook, 97-146.
19. O'Shea, J., Dannenfelser, M., White, M., Osborne, A., Moran, T. P., & Lall, M. D. (2022). A resident retreat with emergency medicine specific mindfulness training significantly reduces burnout and perceived stress. Journal of Wellness, 4(1), 3.
https://doi.org/10.55504/2578-9333.1114.
20. Othoo, H. A., Olendo, C., & Gogo, J. (2023). Optimal pricing for quality education in public Sub-county secondary schools in Busia County, Kenya. Journal of Research Innovation and Implications in Education, 7(1), 110 – 122.
21. Ranwala, D., Alberg, A. J., Brady, K. T., Obeid, J. S., Davis, R., & Halushka, P. V. (2017). Scientific retreats with ‘speed dating’: networking to stimulate new interdisciplinary translational research collaborations and team science. Journal of Investigative Medicine, 65(2), 382-390. doi:10.1136/jim-2016-000261.
22. Schmidt, J. M., Porter, J. T., Rivera-Amill, V., & Appleyard, C. B. (2023). Promoting crucial team building, collaboration, and communication skills in graduate students through interactive retreats. Advances in Physiology Education, 919 – 929.
23. Shiyab, W. E., Ferguson, C., Rolls, K., & Halcomb, E. (2023). Solutions to address low response rates in online surveys. European journal of cardiovascular nursing, 22(4), 441-444.
24. Toropova, A., Myrberg, E., & Johansson, S. (2021). Teacher job satisfaction: the importance of school working conditions and teacher characteristics. Educational review, 73(1), 71-97.
25. Uke, A. F., Otu, E. P., Abel, V. E., & Udom, V. A. (2024). Teachers’ Job Satisfaction Indicators and Labour Turnover in Private Secondary Schools in Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial District Nigeria. International Journal of Education, Learning and Development, 12(2), 11-25.
26. Walberg, H. J. (1980). A psychological theory of educational productivity. ERIC. Institute of Education Sciences.
27. Walberg. (1992). The knowledge base for educational productivity. International Journal of Educational Reform., 1(1), 5–15.
28. Walberg, H. J., Fraser, B. J., Welch, W. W., & Walberg, H. J. (1986). A test of a model of educational productivity among senior high school students. Journal of Educational Research, 79(3), 133–139.
29. Yamane, Taro, (1967). Statistics, An Introductory Analysis, 2nd ed., New York: Harper and Row.
30. Yang, Y., Lu, X., Ban, Y., & Sun, J. (2022). Social support and job satisfaction in kindergarten teachers: the mediating role of coping styles. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 809272.
Copyright (c) 2026 Albert Meshack Tumaini, Emily Achieng Owuor
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
