Perceived school climate and its relationship with teacher commitment : a study on teachers at external quality assurance accredited Islamic private secondary schools in Pattani

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship of school climate and teacher commitment. A total of 13 external quality assurance accredited Islamic private secondary schools in Pattani were surveyed and 304 teachers were randomly selected to participate in the study. The instruments used in this study were the Organizational Climate Index (OCI) (Hoy, et al., 2002) and the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) (Mowday, et al., 1979). The 27-item OCI measured four dimensions of school climate (collegial leadership, teacher professionalism, academic press, and institutional vulnerability). Those four elements formed the independent variables used for the study. The dependent variable was teacher commitment measured by the 15 items of the OCQ. The findings from the descriptive statistics indicated a very high level of teacher commitment. Correlational analysis reported 3 significant relationships between school climate dimensions and teacher commitment. Collegial leadership and teacher professionalism showed positive significant relationships with teacher commitment. Institutional vulnerability was negatively related to teacher commitment. The regression results concluded that the best predictor of teacher commitment is collegial leadership. Furthermore, teacher professionalism was also found to be a significant predictor of teacher commitment.