Effects of Teachers' Working Conditions and Perceived Organizational Support on Professional Commitment (The Case of High School Teachers in West Gojjam Zone)
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Date
2007-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examme the effects of Perceived
Organizational Support, Participation m Decision-making, Extra Role
Involvement, Teaching Experience, and Feelings of Professional Community on
Professional Commitment of teachers' teaching in West Gojjam Zone high
schools. In developing the instruments, Cronbach's alpha reliability for each
scale and item total correlations for each items were computed for pilot and
alpha coefficient again for the main study. 135 randomly selected teachers and
7 principals of each from 7 randomly selected schools of the Zone were used as
the sample of the study. The data were gathered with 59 close-ended items and
with some open-ended questions for teachers and with semi structured
interview for school principals. Pearson product moment correlation, analysis of
variance (ANOVA), multiple and stepwise regression analysis were used to
analyze the data. The result revealed that professional commitment was
positively and significantly correlated with participation in decision-making
(r=.625, p<.Ol), perceived organizational support{r=.594, p<.Ol), feelings of
professional community (r=. 517, p<.Ol), extra role involvement (r=.449, p<.Ol),
and year of teaching experience{r=.216, p<.05). All the independent variables
together contributed 44.7% {F (5. J29) =20.848, P<.OOl) to the variability in
teachers' professional commitment. Participation in decision-making being the
major predictor explained 39.4% (F (1,J33) =86.476, P<.OOl); extra role
involvement and perceived organizational support were the second and third
major predictors, respectively. The above three variables together explained
about 43.9% (F(3,J3J)=34.174, P,<.OOl) of the variability. The rest two
independent variables were not significant predictors of teachers' professional
commitment. Hence, this study would help educational leaders, professionals,
and school principals in their effort of enhancing and maintaining high school
teachers' professional commitment.
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