JOB SATISFACTION AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF JUNIOR HIGH

SCHOOL TEACHERS

Rosita T. Gerona
General Emilio Aguinaldo Natioal High School, Imus City, Cavite
rosita.gerona@deped.gov.ph, 09392047623

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the job satisfaction and organizational
commitment of Junior High School Teachers in General Emilio Aguinaldo National High
School. A descriptive method research design was employed. Respondents were 160
teachers (40 grade 7 teachers, 43 grade 8 teachers, 39 grade 9 teachers and 38 grade
10). Questionnaires and interview were the main instruments of data collection. The
analysis of the quantitative data was carried out by using frequency and percent, mean
and ranking and Pearson product correlation coefficient. Results revealed that a) Faculty
have good level of job satisfaction with 4.11 calculated mean; b) Teachers agreed that
they have good organizational commitment; and c) Faculty job satisfaction and
organizational commitment indicated a direct positive relationship (r=0.398). This means
that teachers with low level of job satisfaction tend to have low level of organizational
commitment while those with high level of job satisfaction tend to have high level of
organizational commitment. As to the result of the mean and ranking analysis, it
revealed that the external factors have more influence than internal factor on teachers’
job satisfaction. The practices of affective, continuance, and normative commitment in
the study were satisfactory.

Keywords: Intrinsic, Extrinsic, Teamwork, Rewards, Job Satisfaction, Commitment,

Continuance, Normative

Introduction

Education is widely recognized as one indicator of development. One of the basic

purposes of education is to produce trained human resource, which can overcome
development impediments of a given country. To achieve this, there should be a satisfied
work force in the sector. The quality of the teachers, their commitment, satisfaction, and
motivation are the determinant factors for the students to benefit from the education
system. Teachers act as role-models, since they are the pillars of the society (Jyoti &
Sharma, 2009) who help the students, not only to grow, but also to be the potential
leaders of the next generation.
Satisfaction with the teaching component has important consequences. A major
part of man’s life is spent at work. Work is social reality and social expectation to which
men seem to confirm. It not only provides status to the individual but also binds him to
the society. An employee who is satisfied with his job would perform his duties fit and be
committed to his job, and subsequently to his organization. Thus, it is of utmost
importance for employers to know the factors that can affect their employees’ job
satisfaction level since it would affect the performance of the organization as well.
Motivation can also play into the theory of job satisfaction because motivation is closely
tied to personal and professional satisfaction.
The main difference between organizational commitment and job satisfaction is
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that job satisfaction is determinative while organizational commitment can be defined as
the emotional responses which an employee has towards his organization. Affective
component of organizational commitment refers to employees’ emotional attachment,
identification and involvement in the organization; Continuance component refers to
commitment based on the costs that employees associate with leaving the organization.
Normative commitment reflects an employee’s feeling of obligation to remain with the
organization. Organizational commitment is determined by a number of factors,
including personal and organizational factors. All these things affect subsequent
commitment.
Job satisfaction and organizational commitment have been found both to be
inversely related to such withdrawal behaviors as tardiness, absenteeism and turnover.
In order to effectively carry out the expected roles and responsibilities, it takes a lot of
commitment on the part of the teacher, which takes into consideration their emotional or
affective attachment to their job and workplace. Thus, with the increasing roles and
responsibilities of teachers in General Aguinaldo National High School (GEANHS), it is
not uncommon to find them expressing their complaints among themselves. Based on
unrecorded conversations and observations; their grievances include heavy workload
with no reasonable pay, working without adequate resources, unsatisfactory financial
benefits, and poorly equipped school canteen. Without intention, the conversation was
heard by the researcher since she is managing the school canteen for three consecutive
years now.
This study is therefore designed to fill the gap by empirically examining the
feelings of the teachers towards the different dimensions of their job and how it links
with their commitment for the success of the institution. Much of the perception of
teachers of General Emilio Aguinaldo National High School had been taken from
unrecorded conversations and observations. The exact levels of their job satisfaction
and commitment have yet to be determined. It is therefore, imperative that an
assessment on Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment of Junior High
School Teachers in General Emilio Aguinaldo National High School be conducted.
This study could lead to a well-planned development of activities to rekindle the
commitment of teachers in the teaching profession.

Research Questions
This research attempted to study the Job Satisfaction and Organizational
Commitment of Junior High School Teachers in General Emilio Aguinaldo National High
School: A Baseline Study.
Specifically, this study aimed to determine the following:
1. What is the demographic profile of the Junior High School Teachers in
General Emilio Aguinaldo National High School, school year 2016-2017 in
terms of: Age, Gender, Educational Attainment, Years in Service, and Civil
Status?
2. What is the level of Job satisfaction of the respondents?
 3. What is the level of organizational commitment of the respondents?
4. Is there a significant relationship in the job satisfaction and organizational
commitment of the respondents?
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Methodology

Research Design
The research design used in this study is descriptive quantitative method. A
typical procedure involve collecting survey data, interpreting the data, analyzing the
data. The correlation method used in the study determine the relationship between job
satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Population and Sampling

The population of this study were the Junior High School Teachers of General
Emilio Aguinaldo National High School-GEANHS. Random sampling was used to
identify the respondents. There are sixty-six (66) grade seven teachers, seventy-two
(72) grade eight teachers, sixty-five (65) grade nine teachers and sixty-four (64) grade
ten teachers, a total of two hundred sixty-six (266) junior high school teachers. The
researcher used Slovin’s Formula and the total teacher respondents are only 160.

Research Instrument
In order to collect the necessary data concerning the job satisfaction and
organizational commitment of junior high school teachers in General Emilio
Aguinaldo National High School, two Standardized Questionnaire were used.

Part 1. Demographic Profile - This part of the survey consists of the personal data of
the respondents. Data gathered provided the description of the teacher-
respondents in terms of age, gender, civil status, educational attainment, and
number of years in service.

Part 2. Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) - Job satisfaction was measured using Job
Satisfaction Survey by Paul E. Spector (2007), that assessed six (6) dimensions of
job satisfaction which includes job in general, supervision, opportunity for promotion,
salary/bonus, colleagues and work environment. Most of the items in Job
Satisfaction Survey (JSS) are adapted from previously used scales.
This section contains: 13 items on Job in general; 8 items on Supervision; 9
items on Opportunity for Promotion; 7 items on Colleagues; 5 items on Salary and
Bonus; and 10 items on Work environment. There are 52 items in all to be guided by
five-point Likert type scale with their equivalent description.

Part 3. Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) - Items for measuring

teachers’ commitment was adapted from (Meyer & Allen, 1997). A five point Likert-type
scale items ranging from 1= Strongly Disagree, to 5=Strongly Agree were used for rating
both teachers level of Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment by Meyer and
Allen’s (1997) was used. The scale measures three distinct dimensions of commitment -
affective commitment (AC), continuance commitment (CC), and normative commitment
(NC).
. This section contains: 6 items on Affective Commitment; 3 items on Continuance
Commitment; 4 items on Normative Commitment. There will be a total of 13 items in all
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to be guided by five-point Likert type scale with their equivalent description.

Data Gathering Procedure

To attain the objectives of the study, the following steps were observed by the
researcher.
1. The researcher seek permission from the principal and the Schools
Division Superintendent to undertake the study.
2. The researcher personally administered the standardized test to the
respondents. This is to ensure one hundred percent retrieval of the
questionnaire.
3. The researcher collected the survey forms, submitted to the statistician for
the interpretation and analysis of data results.

Statistical Treatment of Data

The data collected from the accomplished questionnaires by the respondents
were tabulated and organized to facilitate data processing. Microsoft Excel program
using the tool “Data Analysis” was applied with the following statistical measures.
Descriptive statistical measures such as frequency and percentage were applied
in presenting the demographic profile of the respondents. Also, mean and ranking were
applied in describing level of job satisfaction and that of organizational commitment of
respondents. Rating scale shown in the table was used. Means were verbally described
based on statistical limits constructed as follows:

Table 1. Statistical Measures

STATISTICAL LIMIT DESCRIPTION RANK

4.5 – 5.0 STRONGLY AGREE 1

3.5 – 4.49 AGREE 2
2.5 – 3.49 UNDECIDED 3
1.5 – 2.49 DISAGREE 4
1.0 – 1.4 STRONGLY DISAGREE 5

Ranking was used in assigning relative position or degree of the value based on
mean ratings.
Moreover, the measure such as Pearson’s Coefficient of Correlation “r,”
was applied to describe the direction and significance of the relationship between
variables chosen in this study. The variables referred to are: job satisfaction correlated
with the organizational commitment correlated.
Results and Discussion

Problem 1: What is the demographic profile of the Junior High School Teachers in
General Emilio Aguinaldo National High School, School year 2016-2017?
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Majority of the teacher respondents are female with 87%. There were only 21 or
13% male respondents.
The literature with respect to the relationship between gender and job satisfaction
is inconsistent. Some studies report that women have higher job satisfaction, whereas
other studies find that men are more satisfied, yet other studies find no significant
difference between the genders.
The profile of the teacher respondents when they are grouped according to age.
The respondents were categorized into five age groups: 20 -29 years old, 30-39 years
old, 40-49 years old, 50-59 years old, and 60-69 years old. There are 31 or 19% who
belong to (20-29 age range), and the majority of the respondents were grouped under
the age range of 30-39 which consist of 96 or 60%.
In terms of Civil Status, the majority of the respondents are married with a total of
121 or 76%. There are only 39 or 24% single respondents. 83 or 52% of the teacher-
respondents who are bachelor’s degree holders. While 58 or 36% teachers have units in
master’s program. On the other hand, only 19 or 12% of the teacher-respondents had so
far completed a Master’s degree.
The majority of the teacher respondent belong to (3 to 5 years in service) which
has 49 or 31% followed by group of (9-12 years in service) with 38 or 24% , also there
are 29 or 18% (6-9 years in service). There are 18 or 11% belong to (below 2 years in
service), 14 or 9% belong to (12-14 years in service), 7 or 4% of the respondents who
reached (18 to 21 years in service), lastly 5 or 3% belong to (15-17 years in service).
From this, it might be concluded that satisfaction increases with time and that
those benefits that increase in time, such as security and experience, are likely to have
an important influence on employee satisfaction. The reason the literature is both
inconsistent and inconclusive in this regard may be, because the relationship between
these variables depends on the specific organization and how tenure is viewed. In some
organizations, senior employees are highly respected, while high tenure is viewed as a
problem in other organizations.

Problem 2: What is the level of job satisfaction of the respondents?

Table 2. Overall Mean and Rank Distributions of Responses on Job Satisfaction

JOB SATISFACTION COMPOSITE

FACETS MEAN DESCRIPTION RANK
Job in General 4.27 Agree 1
Supervision 4.04 Agree 4
Opportunity for Promotion 4.12 Agree 3
Colleagues 4.19 Agree 2
Salary/Bonus 4.03 Agree 5
Work Environment 4.01 Agree 6
OVERALL MEAN 4.11 Agree
 Work occupies a large part of each worker’s day, is one’s main source of social
standing, helps to define who a person is, and affects one’s health both physically and
mentally. Because of work’s central role in many people’s lives, satisfaction with one’s
job is an important component in overall well-being. In addition to this, data from
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document analysis show, even if most of teachers have training and development plan
within school level, its implementation is not effective. Simply teachers and schools
prepared their plan for the matter of planning, but not facilitate and monitor its
implementation. The teachers have little opportunity for training, experience sharing with
other schools, and professional development or advancement.
Therefore, provision of job related training and development, experience sharing
and workshop enhance academic performance of teachers and able to give better
results. As Saeed and Asghar (2012), pinpoint training and development improves the
motivation and satisfaction level of employees, increase their skill and knowledge, and
also expands the intellect on overall personality of the employee
The teachers were reported to be strongly committed to the school if the leaders
were highly accessible, tackled problems efficiently or empowered teachers to
participate, and frequently monitored teachers' daily practices. Therefore, poor relations
between teachers with supervisor, student, and management teams and within teachers
reduce success of achieving the school goal and objectives.
This shows that low promotion opportunity of teachers on the job in the
institution. The low promotion opportunity of teachers on the job has negative influence
on student academics performance. It is likely that the employee is satisfied with the
company’s promotion policy, but dissatisfied with the opportunities for promotion. Not all
employees wish to be promoted. Therefore, individual standards for promotion depend
primarily on the employee’s personal and career aspirations.
In any organization, very few things can be accomplished alone. Typically, work is
done in teams or through partnering with colleagues, suppliers and customers. These
relationship must develop quickly and productively to allow for high trust and creative
collaboration. Therefore, work relationship is the relationships between the worker and
his or her superiors, subordinates and peers. This includes both job related interactions
and social interactions within the work environment. In order to build effective working
relationship, employees must be able to engage with others in a positive and productive
way. Yonas (2011), in his study of employees’ satisfaction in Addis Ababa University
found that co-worker relations were significant contributor for overall job satisfaction.
Teachers satisfied with their interpersonal relations found to exhibit better overall job
satisfaction. The work groups characterized by co-operation and understanding amongst
their members tend to influence the level of job satisfaction or dissatisfaction. When
cohesion is evident within a work group it usually leads to effectiveness within a group
and the job becoming more enjoyable.
Sharma & Bajpai, 2011, stated that a salary is a form of periodic payment from an
employer to an employee, which is specific in an employment contract. In addition,
incentive is something that triggers a particular course of action. The existence of both
financial reward and recognition has been found to have a significant influence on
knowledge workers. Therefore, lack sufficient incentive and others benefits for their
additional work influence teachers’ level of satisfaction in job and may limits the level of
effort on the work. A recent study by Yonas (2011) also indicated that there were a
significant relationship between employees’ perception of their payments and overall job
satisfaction.
The working environment is satisfactory to enhance teachers’ job satisfaction in
spite that it is a public school and not all necessary school facilities and equipment are
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provided. Therefore, increasing the teachers’ level of job satisfaction in terms of Work
Environment can increase the students’ academic achievement as well as the schools
goals. Therefore, this problem has an effect on reducing the teachers’ level of job
satisfaction, and this affect the students’ academic achievement as well as schools goal
achievement.
The study of Green (2010) concluded that there are three theoretical frameworks
of job satisfaction, namely content or needs theories, process theories, and situational
models of job satisfaction. The content or needs theories mainly focus on identifying the
specific needs (e.g., food, shelter, air, and rest) or values (respect, recognition, and
achievement) most favorable to job satisfaction). Needs theorists attempt to stipulate
particular needs that must be satisfied, or the values that must be attained, for an
individual to be satisfied with his or her job.

Problem 3: What is the level of organizational commitment of the respondents?

Table 3. Overall Mean and Rank Distributions of Responses on Organizational Commitment

COMPONENT MEAN DESCRIPTION RANK
Affective Commitment 4.15 Agree 1
Continuance Commitment 3.88 Agree 3
Normative Commitment 4.05 Agree 2
OVERALL MEAN 4.03 Agree

Employees with a strong degree of affective commitment continue employment

with the organization because they want to do so. This show that there are teacher who
are not strongly committed to achieve school’s goal. Poor contribution of teachers’ on
the achievement of school goals and objectives affects student performance.
Teachers with continuance professional commitment remain within the teaching
profession because leaving the profession has high cost for them. This shows that most
of the teachers in the teaching profession expressed the desire to change job. Lack of
interest to continue with teaching profession may minimize commitment of teachers’ on
job. The low level of continuance commitment of teachers affects the achievement of
school goals and objectives.
Several variables can determine the level of teacher’s commitment to school.
Therefore, low moral responsibility of teachers has negative influence on the
achievement of school goals and student performances. High moral responsibility of
teachers in the job increases the academic achievement of student.
The results indicated that all the three factors of burn out namely,
depersonalization, reduced personal accomplishment and emotional exhaustion lead to
decreased job satisfaction. In terms of job satisfaction, females showed higher levels of
job satisfaction as compared to men and were reported to be more committed to their
organizations as compared to the male teachers. It was also concluded that greater job
satisfaction contributed significantly towards an increase in organizational commitment.
 Therefore, without teachers’ job satisfaction and commitment, achieving of
educational goal and objective become challenging in the study area.

Problem 4: Is there a significant relationship in the job satisfaction and

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organizational commitment of the respondents?

Table 4. Result of the Pearson’s Product Moment Coefficient of Correlation

Analysis Between Teachers’ Job Satisfaction

Correlates Pearson r Interpretation The

table Relationship
Level of
Satisfaction and
Positive
Level of 0.398 Significant
Correlation
Organizational
Commitment
presents the result of correlation analysis between job satisfaction and organizational
commitment. The computed r = 0.398, being positive, indicates direct relationship
between the correlates. This means that teachers with low level of job satisfaction tend
to have low level of organizational commitment while those with high level of job
satisfaction tend to have high level of organizational commitment.
This result is in line with the findings reported by Lumley, Coetzee, Tladinyane,
and Ferreira (2011) that job satisfaction relates most strongly to affective commitment.
The positive significant relationship between job satisfaction and affective commitment
was an indication of teachers’ feeling of belongingness, high emotional attachment, and
willingness to exert a considerable effort for the success of their college when they feel
satisfied with their job in general. Though the current results contradict with some
studies (Aydogdu and Asikgil, 2011; Aref, K. and Aref, A., 2011), the lack of significant
relationship between overall job satisfaction and continuance commitment seems logical
to some extent. Because continuance commitment is basically resulted from the
individuals recognition of the associated costs that may encounter by termination of
employment.

Conclusions

In the light of the findings of the study, the following conclusions were drawn:

1. The correlation analysis on job satisfaction according to demographic profile of

the respondents. The profile characteristics, age, and civil status correlated with
the level of satisfaction were found positive. It shows a direct relationship with
level of satisfaction. This means that teachers belonging to younger age bracket
and single civil status tend to have lower level of satisfaction while teachers
belonging to older age brackets and married civil status tend to have higher level
of satisfaction. On the other hand, the profile characteristics, gender, educational
attainment, and years in service correlated with the level of satisfaction were
found negative. It shows that these characteristics have inverse relationship with
level of satisfaction. This means that teachers belong to male gender, lower
 educational attainment and less number of years in service tend to have higher
level of satisfaction while teachers belonging to female gender, higher
educational attainment and more of years in service tend to have lower level of
satisfaction.
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2. Teachers’ level of satisfaction in the current job is in good condition due to the
influence of both internal and external factors on the teachers’ job satisfaction.
3. With regard to external factors of job satisfaction teachers are not highly satisfied
with the practices of supervision in the schools because, supervision in the school
is not regularly implemented to enhance teachers’ job satisfaction on their job. Most
of the time supervisors’ practices in the school is to evaluate or inspect the
performance of teachers rather than being supportive and promote team work.
Income and other incentive of teachers are not also satisfied teachers in the job
because teachers lack benefits and incentive for their extra work.
4. The correlation analysis between job satisfaction and organizational commitment
was strong and positive which indicates direct relationship between the
correlates. A higher level of teachers’ job satisfaction was associated with higher
level of organizational commitment. The low level of teachers’ job satisfaction
and their commitment were make the teaching-learning process become
ineffective. Therefore, better to focus on the teachers’ job satisfaction and
commitment like personal development and training, fair benefits and incentive,
constructive continuous support, fair and equitable promotion, in the area of
professional responsibility.

Recommendations

The following recommendations were formulated grounded on the findings of the

study and the conclusions drawn:

1. The Management of General Emilio Aguinaldo National High School

(GEANHS) should undertake necessary measures for the optimal provisions
for intrinsic and extrinsic rewards to make their core-work-force highly
satisfied and committed to reap the benefits of improved work behavior.
2. Support of educational experts and supervisors should be undertaken in
terms of training, seminars and workshops for teachers’ professional
growth. This would help to develop team work and good relationship
between teachers’ and supervisor in the job.
3. The school administrators should strive to create opportunities in which
teachers can get fair and comparable financial benefits with other institutions.
In addition, mechanisms should be prepared in order to decrease teachers’
dissatisfaction as a result of work overload with unreasonable payments. In
the public school, Salary Standardization is applied. Fair and equal
opportunities for teacher who pursue their studies be promoted.
4. Provision of adequate equipment in the laboratory, library, school canteen,
ICT to improve working environment.
5. Since this study also concluded that job satisfaction was positively related
to affective commitment, further field studies on job satisfaction and
 commitment should be encouraged to look into other possible contributing
factors that were not investigated in this study. Exploring additional
variables may provide a better understanding of commitment of teachers
towards their organization. In addition, further studies should consider
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other variables which may contribute for teachers’ job satisfaction; and the
relationship of job satisfaction with different work related behaviors such as
performance and absenteeism.

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