The purpose of this study was to examine how on-the-job training for leadership affected the commitment of teachers toward teaching. It's planned to assess the teaching commitment level of teachers, to investigate how much their teaching efficacy and ...
The purpose of this study was to examine how on-the-job training for leadership affected the commitment of teachers toward teaching. It's planned to assess the teaching commitment level of teachers, to investigate how much their teaching efficacy and positive feedback identified as factors affecting teaching commitment(Hong Chang-nam, 2005) influenced their teaching commitment, to verify whether their profession orientation and belief system in the teaching profession selected as hypothetic variables had any impact on their teaching commitment as valid teacher variables, and ultimately to find out about what sorts of direct and indirect influence on-the-job leadership training exerted on their teaching commitment.
The subjects in this study were 321 elementary and secondary school teachers. Out of them, 119 teachers took on-the-job training courses in leadership, and 211 teachers underwent general on-the-job training. In the former group, 72 teachers took the training courses at Gangwon-do Educational Training Institute. 24 teachers got the training at Seoul Education Research & Information Institute, and 23 teachers participated in a leadership program provided by Daewon Foreign Language High School. A survey was conducted with 68-item questionnaires, and the collected data were analyzed. The findings of the study were as follows:
First, when their teaching commitment was evaluated on a five-point Likert scale, they got a mean of 3.89. When the level of their teaching commitment was assessed by training courses, their commitment level was different according to the training courses. Specifically, they attached more importance to instructional commitment.
Second, it's attempted to check how their teaching commitment was affected by their teaching efficacy and positive feedback, which were identified as influential variables in an earlier study, and by their profession orientation and belief system in the teaching profession, which were selected in this study as hypothetic variables. And it's found that the hypothetic variables made a statistically significantly better prediction than the variables presented by the earlier study, which proved that the hypothetic variables were valid as what impacted on teaching commitment. Among the four variables, belief system in the teaching profession had the most impact on that, followed by profession orientation, positive feedback and teaching efficacy. The findings indicated that the hypothetic variables presented in this study for the first time exerted a greater influence on teaching commitment.
Third, what influence the on-the-job leadership training and the four teacher variables exercised on teaching commitment was investigated. And the on-the-job leadership training made a 51.5% prediction of it at the 0.001 level of significance(R2=0.515, p<0.001). So among the on-the- job leadership training and the four teacher variables, the on-the-job leadership training appeared to be a variable that had the greatest impact on teaching commitment. Accordingly, whether there were any gaps among the teachers who took the different sorts of on-the-job leadership training courses and those who didn't in their view of the necessity and effectiveness of the training and satisfaction level was examined by utilizing t-test. And it's found that what sort of on-the-job training they underwent made a marked broad difference to their outlook on the necessity and effectiveness of the training and to their satisfaction level. It implied that it's needed to take actions to revamp and dynamize the on-the-job training.
Fourth, the on-the-job leadership training variable and the four teacher variables made a large prediction of teaching commitment as stated above. In contrast, interaction among the training and teacher variables had little secondhand impact on that.
The efforts by this study to look into the influence of on-the-job leadership training on teaching commitment served to justify the necessity of more efficient and widespread on-the-job training, and those attempts would contribute to presenting ideal on-the-job training models and boosting the teaching commitment of teachers.
As it's ascertained that the teachers were definitely different from one another in terms of teaching commitment according to the on-the-job training courses, more effective, satisfactory and applicable on-the-job training should be provided. To make it happen, training programs of new approach should be developed first of all. Secondly, the feedback of trainees and their satisfaction level with lecturers and courses should be analyzed, and next training courses should be prepared in response to their needs. Thirdly, the field applicability and usefulness of programs should regularly be checked every six months or on a yearly basis. Fourthly, follow-up programs that could remind trainees of what they learned should urgently be developed. Teachers who take the training courses will be more dedicated to teaching, and then school performance and the quality of school education will be taken to another level, which is the greatest mission of public education sector.