The Level of Commitment and its Relation to Students’ Achievement as Perceived by English Language Teachers in Public Schools in Tulkarm District

This study aimed at investigating the level of secondary English language teachers’ commitment toward their work in public schools and its relation to several variables (gender, qualification, school climate, administration type, marital status, years of teaching experience, age and salary), on the one hand, the relation between teachers’ commitment and their students’ academic achievement, on the other hand, through answering the following questions: 1. To what extent are the secondary English language teachers committed to their occupation? 2.Are there any significant differences at (α=0.05) in the level of school commitment of secondary English language teachers due to gender, qualification, school climate, administration type, marital status, years of teaching, age and salary variables. The population of the study consisted of all secondary English language teachers in Tulkarm District in the scholastic year 2003-2004. The sample of the study consisted of 39 teachers (23males and16 females).The Organizational Commitment questionnaire, which was developed by Celep (2000), was adopted for this study to measure the level of teachers’ organizational commitment. It included 28 items distributed on the four domains of the study. It also included two open questions about teachers’ commitment. Study validity was confirmed by a group of experts Dr. Fawaz Aqel, Dr. Faiz Aqel, and Dr. Susan Arafat. The reliability coefficient of the study instrument was (0.88), which was suitable for the study purposes.The data was collected and analyzed by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).The major results of the study that the researcher found were the following: -English language teachers’ commitment achieved a high degree, with a mean of (3.63) and percentage of (72.6). Commitment to teaching work domain achieve the first rank, commitment to work group achieved the second rank, and commitment to teaching occupation achieved the third rank, while commitment to school achieved the fourth rank. -There were significant differences at (α= 0.05) in the level of commitment of secondary English language teachers among the four domains in favour of commitment to teaching work. -There was a significant relation at(α=0.05) between teachers’ commitment and students’ achievement. -There were significant differences at(α=0.05) among comfortable climate, moderate climate, and bureaucratic climate in favor of comfortable climate, whereas the results didn’t show significant differences in teachers’ commitment due to gender, qualifications, school administration type, marital status, teaching years, age, and salary. Concerning the two open questions results showed that the democratic climate was the most important factor in increasing teachers’ commitment to their job, whereas the low salary was the most important factor in decreasing teachers’ commitment to their job. Based on the results of this study, it was recommended that teachers should be involved in the school activities, given more freedom, and engaged in the process of decision making to encourage them be more committed. Moreover, committed teachers should be rewarded to reinforce them, hence increase their commitment to their occupation. Finally, further research is needed to compare the level of commitment of elementary, secondary, and university English language teachers using a larger sample than the current one.