The Relationship Between the Level of Schools’ Academic Optimism and Teachers’ Organisational Commitment

Year 2011, Volume: 3 Issue: 3, 317 - 348, 01.04.2011

Duygu Çoban Hasan Demirtaş

Abstract

Background: An optimistic classroom would emphasize the opportunities and possibilities (Wethington, 2003), resilience (Ryff & Singer, 2003), altruism (Piliavin, 2003), and trust (Hoy, Tarter & Hoy, 2006).According to Pajares (2001) when looking at the classroom context, optimistic teachers focus on the positive qualities of students, classrooms, schools, and communities (Hoy, Kurz, & Hoy, 2008). Optimism is an appropriate overarching construct to unite efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis because each concept contains a sense of the possible. Efficacy is the belief that the faculty can make a positive difference in student learning; teachers believe in themselves. Faculty trust in students and parents is the belief that teachers, parents, and students can cooperate to improve learning, that is, the faculty believes in its students. Academic emphasis is the enacted behavior prompted by these beliefs, that is, the focus is student success. Thus, a school with high academic optimism is a collectivity in which the faculty believes that it can make a difference, that students can learn, and academic performance can be achieved (Kurz, 2006). Academic emphasis, collective efficacy, and faculty trust were the collective properties analyzed in this inquiry. These perceived properties are assessed as emergent organizational attributes in aggregated individual perceptions of the group, as opposed to the individual; that is, these variables are emergent grouplevel attributes rather than simply the sum of teachers' perceived personal attributes. Academic emphasis is the extent to which a school is driven by a quest for academic excellence—a press for academic achievement.High but achievable academic goals are set for students; the learning environment is orderly and serious; students are motivated to work hard; and students respect academic achievement (Smith & Hoy, 2007). The relationships among the three major dimensions of academic optimism can be seen as a triadic set of interactions with each element functionally dependent on the others. Faculty trust in parents and students encourages a sense of collective efficacy, and collective efficacy reinforces and enhances trust. Similarly, when the faculty trusts parents, teachers can insist on higher academic standards with confidence that they will not be undermined by parents, and high academic standards in turn reinforce faculty trust. Finally, when the faculty believes it has the capability to organize and execute actions that will have positive effects on student achievement, academic achievement is emphasized, and academic emphasis in turn reinforces a strong sense of collective efficacy. In summary, all of the elements of academic optimism have transactional relationships with each other and interact to create a culture of academic optimism in schools. Akademik İyimserlik ve Örgütsel Bağlılık Organizational commitment, which is defined as the relative capacity of an employee to attach to and be identified with the organization (Bogler & Somech, 2004, s. 278; Yousef, 2003, s. 1068), is a term studied within the scientific discipline of organizational behavior (Üstüner, 2009).Organizational commitment can be characterized by at least three factors: (1) strong belief in and acceptance of the organization`s goals and values (2) a willingness to exert considerable effort on the behalf of the organization (3) definite desire to maintain organizational membership (Atchison & Lefferts, 1972; Kraut, 1970, cited in Porter, Steers, Mowday and Boulian, 1974). Allen and Meyer (1990) described organizational commitment model with three factors: affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment (Buluç, 2009)Committed employees who feel organizational ownership produce quality products and services with customer satisfaction internally and externally (Johnson, 1993) since commitment engages emotional energy and attention to them (Gümüş & Hamarat, 2006). Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between academic optimism of schools and organizational commitment of teachers. The secondary purpose is to investigate whether there are any differences in perceptions of teachers about organizational commitments and academic optimism of their schools in terms of gender, branch, school type, seniority, number of teachers in school and number of students in school. Method: This search is a descriptive work in which survey model has been used. For purposes a questionnaire was fulfilled to 671 teachers from 32 public primary and high schools in the city center of the province Malatya. “Schools' Academic Optimism Scale” and “Organisational Commitment Scale for Teachers” were used to investigate the perceptions of teachers. The data gained from the search has been analysed with SPSS program. At the analysis stage of the research, firtsly a Levene's Test for Homogeneity was conducted to determine if the variances differ as homogenous. For the cases where variances are homogenous, Independent T-Test is used to analyze the data in terms of gender, branch and school type. For other cases where the variances are not homogenous Mann Whitney-U Test is used to analyze the datas.Likewise, for the cases where variances are homogenous, One Way- ANOVA Test is used to analyze the data in terms of branch, seniority, number of teachers and number of students. For the cases where the variances are not homogenous Kruskal Wallis-H Test is used to analyze the data in terms of branch, seniority, number of teachers and number of students. Findings & Results: According the findings it was seen that male teachers' perceptions about academic optimism of their schools are higher than female teachers and male teachers feel themselves more dependent to their organizations. At subdimenions of academic optimism, primary school teachers' self-efficacy beliefs are more than branch teachers'. At subdimensions of academic optimism, primary school teachers' self-efficacy beliefs are more than high school teachers' but against this high school teachers trust their students and parents more than primary school teachers. At subdimensions of academic optimism, teachers served school more than 21 years have more trust to their students besides parents and organizational commitment of these teachers is higher than the others. Academic optimism of schools have 26-50 teachers is at the upper level than the others both total and subdimensions of scale and organizational commitment of schools have 1-25 teachers is at the upper level than the others.Schools have got fewer students are at higher level in terms of academic optimism and organizational commitment than schools have got a large number of students. There is a moderate relationship between academic optimism and organizational commitment. Conclusions & Discussions: The main purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between schools' academic optimism and teachers' organisational commitment. Finally, the relationship is explored. The finding aligns with wisdom of practice; if teachers believe in their teaching ability, trust their students, and emphasis academic instruction, they put more time and energy into their organisation. Some findings about independent variables are given through. Male teachers' both academic optimism and organisational commitment senses are more than female teachers. Theachers have been working over 21 years organisational commitment senses are more than the others. Academic optimism senses are seen at the schools have fewer teachers ore than the others. Teachers working at the schools having fewer teachers have more organisatonal comitment senses than the others. Both academic optimism and organisational commitment teachers working at schools having fewer students feel themselves more efficant. According this findings it was suggested that buiding small schools will increase both academic optimism and organisational commitment senses of teachers. Searching the causal link of relationship between academic optimism and organisational commitment will give more explanatory reslts about teachers and schools. The relationship between academic optimism and other oranisational issues like organisational intelligence, organisational culture, leadership sould be research.

Keywords

academic optimism , school academic optimism , organisational

Okulların Akademik İyimserlik Düzeyi ile Öğretmenlerin Örgütsel Bağlılığı Arasındaki İlişki

Abstract

Akademik iyimserlik bir öğretmenin, öğrencilerin akademik performansında değişiklik yapabileceği konusundaki pozitif inançlarıdır. Akademik iyimserlik öz yeterlik, güven ve akademik vurgu olmak üzere üç boyuttan oluşmaktadır. Bu araştırmanın temel amacı okulların akademik iyimserliği ile öğretmenlerin örgütsel bağlılığı arasındaki ilişkinin incelenmesidir. Araştırmanın alt amaçları ise; öğretmenlerin okullarının akademik iyimserliğine ilişkin görüşleri ile örgütsel bağlılıklarının cinsiyet, branş, okul türü, kıdem, okuldaki öğretmen sayısı ve okuldaki öğrenci sayısı değişkenlerine göre farklılaşıp farklılaşmadığının test edilmesidir. Bu amaçla Malatya il merkezinde bulunan 32 resmi ilköğretim ve ortaöğretim okulunda çalışan 671 öğretmene Okul Akademik İyimserlik Ölçeği ile Öğretmenler İçin Örgütsel Bağlılık Ölçekleri uygulanmıştır.Araştırma verilerinin analizinde; betimsel istatistiki hesaplamalar, t testi, Tek Yönlü Varyans Analizi (ANOVA), LSD testi, Kruskal Wallis H testi, Mann Whitney-U testi ve korelasyon analizleri kullanılmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda öğretmenlerin, okullarının akademik iyimserliğine ilişkin ölçekte yer alan maddelere çoğunlukla düzeyinde katıldıkları, örgütsel bağlılıklarının ise orta düzeyde olduğu bulunmuştur.Öğretmenlerin okullarının akademik iyimserliğine ilişkin görüşleri ile örgütsel bağlılıklarında cinsiyet, branş, okul türü, kıdem, öğretmen ve öğrenci sayıları değişkenleri açısından anlamlı farklılıklar bulunmuştur.Diğer yandan öğretmenlerin okullarının akademik iyimserlik düzeyine ilişkin görüşleri ile örgütsel bağlılıkları arasında pozitif yönde ve “orta” düzeyde bir korelasyon bulunmuştur.

Keywords

akademik iyimserlik , okul akademik iyimserliği , örgütsel bağlılık , öz

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