ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS: A STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING ANALYSIS

Abstract

The study determined the level of organizational commitment of public school teachers in their identity orientation, immediacy behaviour, and teacher selfefficacy in Region XI, Mindanao, Philippines.  Using descriptive-correlation and Structural Equation Modeling, the researcher selected 400 public elementary school teachers from the region through stratified proportionate sampling. Findings revealed high levels of identity orientation, immediacy behaviour, organizational commitment and a very high level of teacher self-efficacy. A significant relationship was shown between all latent exogenous variables and organizational commitment; all latent exogenous variables significantly influenced the endogenous variable organizational commitment. The most parsimonious model 5 conveyed a generalized new concept that teacher commitment was primarily grounded on continuance and affective organizational commitment, defined from the nature of identity orientation which was influenced by social and collective identity, and which must be highly reinforced with verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviour of teachers. Structural Model 5, which depicted the direct causal relationships of identity orientation and immediacy behaviour to the organizational commitment of teachers, was found to be the best fit and most parsimonious model.