Dire Dawa University

Business and Economics College

Management Department

Masters of business administration (MBA)

Weekend program

Management concept and practices article assignment #1

Name:-Eyael shimels desta

ID:-…………………

Title of assignment:-X and Y Theories in Classroom Management

Summited to:- mesfin mekonnine

Data:-08/12/22

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Turan Akman Erkilic. (2008). A discussion on the application of Two factor, X and Y Theories in
Classroom Management. American-Eurasian Journal of Scientific Research 3(1): 111-116.

Introduction

In his article Erkilic trays to discuss the application of Two factor, X and Y motivational theories
in educational area or classroom management, a theory which originally developed for industrial
sector or organizational management.

The purpose of his study was to briefly discuss how the Two factor, X and Y theories would be
applied to educational area specifically in classroom management. Because he believes that the
assumption of these theories have not been criticized or studied in educational area yet.
According to Daft (2008), the Two Factor theory is a Herzberg’s theory, which suggests that
there are two factors; motivation factors or satisfiers and hygiene factors. Motivation factors or
satisfiers are the job factors that if delivered enhance satisfaction or motivation but their absence
does not necessarily create dissatisfaction. These satisfiers consist of work itself, responsibility,
recognition, achievement, growth and etc. On the other hand, hygiene factors when available
decrease dissatisfaction. They are company policy, pay, working conditions, supervision and etc.
Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human work motivation and management. The two
theories proposed by McGregor that describe contrasting models of workforce motivation
applied by managers in human resource management, organizational behavior, organizational
communication and organizational development. Theory X explains the importance of
heightened supervision, external rewards, and penalties, while Theory Y highlights the
motivating role of job satisfaction and encourages workers to approach tasks without direct
supervision

His argument/discussion mainly based on the logical and persuasive reasoning than the empirical
analysis. However he also tries to support his logics and persuasion reasoning by empirical
evidences of previous studies even though, the studies that are referred were different in theme
with respect to his objective. Meaning the majorities of presented empirical evidences are
evidences that support the original assumption of those theory other than classroom management.

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Brief Summary

The main purpose of Erkilic study was to discuss two factor, X and Y motivation theories from
the point of classroom management. In doing so, first he tries to define the general motivation
and specifically Herzberg’s two factor and McGregor X and Y motivational theories with respect
to the general and education management particularly classroom management. Then he
suggested how these theories will be applied in classroom management based on his logical and
persuasive reasoning.

His suggestion regarding two factor theory was students may considered as a working component
of educational organization and classrooms may be count as small organization, because of these
it is possible the two factor theory may have the chance for the application of educational area
particularly for classroom management. Regarding X and Y motivational theories, as theory-X
assume teachers may assume students are inherently lazy and will avoid studying if they can and
that they inherently dislike learning. As a result of this, teachers/educators believe that students
need to be closely supervised and comprehensive systems of controls developed in classroom
management. Whereas, as of in theory-Y teachers may assumes students are ambitious and self-
motivated and can exercise self-control. As the result of this, teachers/ educators believe that
given the right conditions students will want to do well at their studies and responsibilities so
students need to be motivates as assumptions of Y theory.

Here, in suggestion of those theories in applying at educational area or class room management,
it would be better if it was support by empirical evidences than only logical and persuasive
reasoning.

Discussions and Result

In his discussion even though each theories are developed or designed for industrial working
condition, he believes that these theory was not come in handy for educational area specifically
for classroom management. Therefore he tries to discuss each theory separately; my discussion
and result also follow the same way.

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The Two Factor Theory

Here he stated that in classroom management hygiene factors are maintenance factors which can
be point out as classroom physical arrangement, physical security, educational equipment and
tools that are educational technology, central heating system, stage lighting and working
conditions. Whereas, student’s achievement, advancement, recognition, challenge and given
responsibility to the students seen as motivating factors. From his discussion, the theory argue
that there is a direct relationship between effectiveness and job satisfaction however the research
studies only satisfaction and dissatisfaction and does not relate either of them to the effectiveness
or productivity of the respondents. Though a theory was developed for different working
environment other than educational area, students can be seen as workers and classrooms as
small organization. Nevertheless students cannot count as a worker and classrooms are not
factory. However, students may be considered as a working component of educational
organization and classrooms may be count as small organization, because of these it is possible
the two factor theory may have the chance for the application of educational area particularly for
classroom management.

Therefore keeping the basic properties of humanistic, cognitive and socio-cultural views of
motivation, self esteem, self fulfillment, self determination, engaged participation in learning
communities maintaining identity through participation in activities of group can be considered
as motivating factor in class as indicated in the two factor theory.

Theory X and Theory Y

Here work becomes study, employees become students, managers become educators/teachers,
and so on. In theory-X teachers assume students are inherently lazy and will avoid studying if
they can and that they inherently dislike learning. As a result of this, teachers/educators believe
that students need to be closely supervised and comprehensive systems of controls developed. In
other words a theory X educator believes that his or her students do not really want to study, that
they would rather avoid responsibility and that it is the teacher’s job to structure the work and
energize the students.

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Whereas, in theory-Y teachers assumes students may be ambitious and self-motivated and
exercise self-control. It is believed that students enjoy their mental and physical learning duties.
Meaning given the proper conditions, theory Y educators believe that students will learn to seek
out and accept responsibility and to exercise self-control and self-direction in accomplishing
objectives to which they are committed. A Theory Y teacher believes that, given the right
conditions, most people will want to do well at their studies. They believe that the satisfaction of
doing a good job is a strong motivation

He argue that the application of these theory may be possible for two reasons first if we consider
the educational area as service sector, it is possible to utilize the concepts of the theory in
classroom management too. Secondly the concepts of these theories can be applied through
modification in to the situation to classroom management. Yet, the problem in this regard is that
students cannot be considered as a worker, classrooms are not a factory and the relationship
between teachers and students differ from that of managers to workers.

However, he tries to convince the applicability of the theories as, all assumptions about workers
approximately can be used for students. In fact students can be defined or seen as having
irresponsible, lazy, directed and controlled personality. In this case he recommends that teachers
as classroom manager may use the assumption of theory X as guide to action in dealing with
students. Because students prefer to be directed that they are motivated not by desire to do a good
job or study very hard, as well it can be better to motivate them by using simply by financial
incentives or external motivators like reward, high score and point. And students in class and
outside must be closely supervised for desired classroom management and organizational goals
of school. In some case students may like studying by them and would like to exercise substantial
self control over them. And also students at school are motivated to do a good job or study by the
opportunity to affiliate with their peers, rather than just by hygiene factors and classroom
controlling. Therefore teachers as classroom manager should prefer to apply the assumptions of
Y theory to the students.

Finally, even it is discussable the in educational area or classroom is similar with industrial
factory or organizational management or not, he recommend that as teachers and educators to
apply those theories in classroom management, by strengthening his recommendation that many

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today’s educational theories are taken from general management area such as Maslow’s
hierarchy of need theory.

Contributions

The main contribution of this article is that articulating a theory totally developed for industrial
sector or organizational management and recommending it how it would be applied in
educational area specifically to class room management is the new look and contribution for the
subject matter.

Foundation

This article mainly built up on the theories of motivation. Among the motivational theory
Herzberg’s two factor and McGregor’s theory X and theory Y are the main foundation. In other
words the author built up his frame from motivational theory that dominates thinking of the
twentieth century. Those are the behaviorist psychology in which external control of individual
emphasized and psychic energy of internal thoughts and feelings as the primary source of
motivation. Here it is unable for me to re-vise the cited foundation/material, because the full
citation is missed from listed bibliography list. However, in my view the article was built upon
with good foundational and other materials which are cited to support the discussion also
relevant for the discussion area in general but, the only critic here is empirical evidences that
support the particular dissection area i.e. classroom management were very shy or none.

Synthesizing with Class Materials

Since the majority of the portions which we covered in this subject (management and
organization theory) are related to the article, it is not much difficult to synthesize the article to
our class material. Particularly when we are dealt the thoughts of management and organizational
theory, we deeply discuss these theories and their assumption in the class materials. Therefore, in
his discussion Erkilic discussed the theories as we have thought in the course material. However,
while he suggesting the theories for the application of classroom management, he lacks empirical
evidence how those theories are implemented to classroom management because the theories are
developed for organizational/industrial management other than classroom management. Here it

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does not mean that the assumptions of those theories are not implemented in classroom
management but, it would better if it was supported from evidences of empirical studies of the
area how the assumptions of these theories is implemented in classroom management other than
logical and persuasive reasoning alone.

General Critique

My first critique goes to the methodology, the methodology he was used lacks empirical. It
would be better if it was supported by empirical findings or case studies to explore how those
theories can be applied and useful for educational area particularly for classroom management. In
other words, to provide a more detailed analysis and evidence how it would be implemented, it
would have been better to have cases/empirical data from the same situation. Therefore, in
arguing his argument, the writer does not support his scholarly claims in empirical evidence.

As well in his discussion, he does not relate his argument with other related or similar sources to
strengthen his argument particularly with the empirical one. So I am not confidence enough to
suggest the findings of this study/article for implementation to area.

Issues (listed by the author)

In his final recommendation he left one open question for discussion to debate. The question was
that “does educational area or classroom management is similar with industrial factory or
organizational management?”

This is an important question since the assumptions of the original theories are for
organizational/industrial management, much discussion or empirical studies are needed how the
classroom management environment is similar or related to the environments of organizational
management, how students can be similar to workers and how teachers are the same with
managers is still open for discussion. Therefore, much is expected from scholars of the area to
reach on consensus on the issue.

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Questions

1. Do really think that the assumptions of two factors, X and Y motivational theories are
still fit for the educational environments of twenty first century particularly for classroom
management?
2. How do we evaluate the Ethiopian educational environment or classroom management
with respect to two factors, X and Y motivational theories?

3. Do really copping the assumptions of these theories and pasted the theory directly from
and replaced management terms with educational terms is enough for implementation of
these theory in classroom management?

Additional Reference

Richard L. Daft. (2008). Management. (8th edn). Thomson, South-western.

I referred this book in order to get deeper insight about the theories and concepts. As to me
Professor Daft is credible author for any management concept because he specializes in the study
of organization theory and leadership, and he is the author of over 12 books and dozens of
articles regarding the field.