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The purpose of this study was to understand the educational professional commitment of the self-contained mentally retarded class'''' and regular class'''' teachers in Taiwan and to investigate the relationship between teacher''''s background (personal, familial, school, social) variables and professional commitment. We adopted "Eduational Professional Commitment of Teachers in Elementary Schools Inventory" developed in the study as the instrument. Cluster stratified random sampling was used in the investigation. Data were collected from 196 self-contained mentally retarded class'''' and 292 regular class'''' teachers. The obtained data were analyzed by two-way MANOVA and multiple stepwise regression. Three dimensions were illustrated in the study; including involvement, professional identity and intent to stay.The conclusions drawn from the study are as in the following:1. The educational professional commitment of self- contained mentally retarded class'''' and regular class'''' teachers were found excellent, but there was a significant difference in professional identity between them.2. The significant predictors of involvement are ages, present teaching achievement, fitness between aptitude and present teaching task, religion devoutness, educational background, administrative task, self-decision for curriculum design, school size, school area, work stress, colleague relationship, pupil''''s parents'''' support, teacher social status, and social acceptance.3. The significant predictors of professional identity are present teaching achievement, teaching selection of self, religion devoutness, family support, marriage status, work stress, pupil''''s parents'''' support, social acceptance, and teacher social status.4. The significant predictors of intent to stay are present teaching achievement, sex, ages, fitness between aptitude and present teaching task, teaching selection of self, family support, work stress, principal''''s leadership style, staff support, colleague relationship, school area, and teacher social status. Recommendations were made to base on the study findings, for teacher cultivating institution, education administration, school administration, principals, teachers, and future study.
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