A research paper published in a Scopus-indexed journal

Teachers’ Commitment and Students’ Performance in English at a University in South Korea
Massuline Antonio D. Ligaya, Joung-Hyun Ham, and Hyun-Jung Min
Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Vol. 8, No. S9, May 2015, pp. 228–233
DOI: 10.17485/ijst/2015/v8iS9/68306

Research Summary

Teachers play a central role in students’ academic development, but effective teaching may depend on more than professional knowledge and instructional competence. The extent to which teachers are committed to their work and to the institutions they serve may also influence how they perform their responsibilities and, ultimately, how their students learn. This study examined the relationship between teachers’ commitment and students’ performance in English at a university in South Korea, with particular attention to two dimensions of commitment: commitment to job and commitment to organization.

The study involved 15 foreign English teachers and 420 students. The participating teachers were teaching English to Korean students learning the language as non-native speakers, placing the teachers in a professional environment that required them to address not only differences in language ability but also cultural differences between themselves and their students. Teachers assessed their own levels of commitment to their job and organization through a questionnaire, while students’ performance was measured using their test scores in writing, listening, and speaking.

A descriptive research design was employed. Frequency counts and means were used to describe teachers’ levels of commitment and students’ English performance, while regression analysis was used to examine whether commitment to job and commitment to organization predicted performance in each of the three language areas.

The teachers reported being committed both to their job and to their organization. However, their mean commitment-to-job score (4.00) was slightly higher than their commitment-to-organization score (3.80), suggesting somewhat stronger identification with the work of teaching itself than with the institution in which they were employed.

Students, meanwhile, demonstrated generally high performance across the three English-language areas, with their strongest performance occurring in speaking. Regression analyses showed that, when considered together, commitment to job and commitment to organization did not significantly predict students’ performance in writing or listening. The same overall pattern was found for speaking: the regression model containing both commitment variables was not statistically significant.

An important result nevertheless emerged at the individual-predictor level. Commitment to job was significantly associated with students’ speaking performance (p = .042), whereas commitment to organization was not. The finding suggests that teachers’ dedication to the actual work of teaching may have particular relevance to an interactive language skill such as speaking, where student development depends heavily on classroom engagement, communication, encouragement, and sustained interaction with the teacher.

The study therefore presents a more nuanced picture than the simple assumption that greater teacher commitment automatically produces better student performance. Commitment to the organization itself did not emerge as a significant predictor of achievement in the three English skills examined, while commitment to the teaching job showed a significant relationship only with speaking. The results suggest that different forms of teacher commitment may relate differently to specific dimensions of student learning.

Research Contribution

The study contributes to research on teacher commitment and language-learning outcomes by distinguishing commitment to one’s teaching job from commitment to the employing organization and examining their relationships with separate English skills rather than with a single overall academic-performance measure. Its finding concerning speaking raises an important possibility: in communicative language education, teachers’ dedication to the actual work of teaching may be particularly relevant to learning outcomes that depend heavily on direct teacher-student interaction. The study also provides an early empirical foundation for further investigation of teacher-related factors affecting English-language performance in the South Korean university context.

Keywords: teacher commitment, commitment to job, organizational commitment, English performance, speaking, listening, writing, South Korea

Full Text

The full text of this publication is available upon request. Researchers, educators, students, and other interested readers who wish to obtain a copy may contact the author through this website or by email at madligaya@gmail.com.