Review article
Preservice teacher professional commitment: A conceptual model and literature review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103373Get rights and content

Highlights

  • This article proposes a preservice teacher Commitment Model.

  • The Model is built on Locke's Model of Work Motivation.

  • The article reviews 47 empirical studies about PST commitment.

  • The Model illustrates the genesis, development, and consequence of PST commitment.

  • The conceptual model and literature review are both firsts for this topic.

Abstract

Prior research on preservice teacher commitment focuses on the relation between commitment and various relevant factors. Its nature and how it originates, develops, and impacts preservice teachers' learning to teach and career choice have yet to be described clearly. Using Locke's Model of Work Motivation, this paper presents a conceptual model to explain the nature of preservice teacher commitment, illustrates its genesis and development, and analyzes how commitment impacts preservice teachers' learning to teach and career choice. Further, we conduct a literature review of empirical research on preservice teacher commitment to explicate the constructs and relationships embedded in the conceptual model and corroborate its viability. Finally, we discuss the implications of our new model from multiple perspectives.

Introduction

Researchers examine commitment to teaching from many perspectives. The most critical one may be the role commitment plays in employee turnover (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005; Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002). Recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers are becoming increasingly difficult in many countries, in particular the United States (Ingersoll, Merrill, & Stuckey, 2014) and the United Kingdom (Education Committee, 2017). In the United States, the annual turnover rate has remained at 8% over the last decade (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, & Carver-Thomas, 2016), with more than 41% of new teachers leaving the profession within their first five years in the classroom (Perda, 2013). Not only is it costly for schools to fill the vacancies, but constant turnover erodes the competence and morale of the teaching force (Ingersoll et al., 2014). For this reason especially, researchers have been paying close attention to teaching commitment, both as a predictor of preservice teachers' (PSTs) entry to teaching (e.g., Rots, Aelterman, Vlerick, & Vermeulen, 2007), and of inservice teachers’ eventual retention (e.g., Chapman, 1984; Chapman & Green, 1986).

Also, commitment has close connections with other job-related variables. Specifically, stronger commitment is correlated with increased job involvement and certain citizenship behaviors, better performance, higher satisfaction, lower stress, and fewer absences and work-family conflicts (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005; Meyer et al., 2002). Somech and Bogler (2002) discovered an intimate connection between Israeli teachers’ commitment and their citizenship behaviors: Teachers who reported higher commitment levels, for example, were more likely to stay after school hours to support students with class materials. McInerny and colleagues reported that teachers in Hong Kong with higher levels of commitment demonstrated better psychological well-being reflected in a desire for involvement and perceived recognition at work (McInerney, Ganotice, King, Morin, & Marsh, 2015).

Given the widely recognized importance of commitment, teacher education practitioners would do well to understand exactly what commitment entails and recognize its role in preparing dedicated PSTs. Researchers have been investigating teacher commitment for decades (e.g., White, 1966). However, this work has focused predominantly on inservice teachers. Consequently, our understanding of commitment is far less advanced with regard to PSTs than with inservice teachers (e.g., Chan, Lau, Nie, Lim, & Hogan, 2008; Firestone & Pennell, 1993; Reyes, 1990). Furthermore, many questions about PST commitment remain unanswered or the answers are unclear. For example, does gender relate to PSTs’ commitment? What factors contribute to the development of commitment? How does commitment impact PST behavior during their preparation? We suggest that there are salient differences between PSTs and inservice teachers, such that conceptualizations about inservice teacher commitment may not always apply to PST commitment. In short, we recommend further research on commitment as it relates to teachers in preparation.

In order to direct our focus on PST commitment, we propose a PST Commitment Model by drawing on Edwin Locke's (1997) Model of Work Motivation. To illustrate clearly how the PST Commitment Model works, we situate it in a literature review that further explicates its constructs and relationships. Our goal is to reveal the nature of PST commitment, clarify its genesis and development, and describe the mechanisms through which it affects PST actions of learning to teach and career choice. The model leads us to propose several priorities for future research, while shedding more light on teacher education practice and policymaking as they relate to teacher commitment.

In order to clarify the notion of PST commitment, we discuss, in the following sub-sections, three existing conceptualizations of commitment, followed by our own definition, which informs our work.

Since Becker (1960) proposed his seminal side-bet theory, many conceptualizations and definitions of commitment have emerged, but its meaning is still disputed (Klein, Molloy, & Cooper, 2009). We examine some of the prominent interpretations and propose our own conceptualization of PST commitment.

The investment perspective derives from Becker's (1960) side-bet theory and emphasizes the economic aspect of commitment. According to Becker, commitment is established when people stick to a consistent line of activities. People commit because they have made a side bet (investment) on the target to which they are committed; if activities are discontinued, the side bet may be lost. A definition aligning with this perspective is: “[Commitment is the] profit associated with continued participation and a ‘cost’ associated with leaving” (Kanter, 1968, p. 504).

The attitudinal perspective focuses on people's perceptions about their relationship with organizations where they work (Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). Observed in this manner, a committed employee believes and accepts the goals and values of the organization, is willing to exert effort on behalf of the organization, and desires to maintain membership. Thus, commitment is defined as “the relative strength of an individual's identification with and involvement in a particular organization” (Mowday et al., 1982, p. 27). This outlook has a long-lasting impact on commitment research in educational settings. Both Reyes's (1990) definition of teacher organizational commitment (commitment to schools) and Coladarci's (1992) definition of teacher professional commitment (commitment to the teaching profession) align with the attitudinal perspective.

Since the 1980s, researchers have viewed commitment as a multidimensional construct. Reichers (1985) observed that organizations are coalitional rather than monolithic entities: Any organization comprises multiple constituencies, such as superiors, co-workers, and subordinates. Each has unique goals and values that are not necessarily congruent with that of the organization. In addition, a person may be committed to targets beyond the organization, such as unions.

From a multidimensional perspective, Meyer and Allen (1991) proposed a three-component model that is composed of affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment. Their commonality is that commitment “binds an individual to a course of action of relevance to one or more targets” (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001, p. 301) and, thereby, diminishes the likelihood of turnover. But the three forms of commitment differ from one another in their accompanying mind-sets (Meyer & Allen, 1991): Affective commitment is emotional attachment, identification, and involvement; continuance commitment is an awareness of the costs rendered by leaving; normative commitment is a feeling of obligation to continue.

The investment theory and the attitudinal perspective each emphasize a different aspect of commitment, while Meyer and Allen's Three-Component Model adds a third normative dimension and with it more explanatory power. However, their definition is not without problems. For example, theorists disagree as to whether affective commitment and normative commitment are truly distinct constructs, given their strong correlation (Ko, Price, & Mueller, 1997).

Following the attitudinal perspective (Mowday et al., 1982), we may define teaching commitment as the strength of psychological attachment to the target of teaching, a definition we adopt for our conceptualization of PST commitment. Our perspective comes with the following considerations: (1) The investment perspective is primarily economic and cannot always guarantee teachers' long-term commitment (Wang & Gao, 2013). Teachers' temporary tenure in the teaching profession rendered by financial stimulus is not about authentic commitment, the focus of our interest in this article. (2) Regardless of the noticeable analytic power of Meyer's three-component model, its relevance is more to industrial and organizational psychology than teacher education and is therefore rarely seen in the literature of PST commitment.

Teacher commitment may be directed towards the teaching profession, students, academic subjects, schools, and teacher unions. Although other dimensions might be of interest, we contend that commitment to the teaching profession is the most pivotal: (1) Professional commitment is the most effective predictor of teachers’ retention in the teaching profession, the most pressing issue in many countries. (2) PSTs are being trained in universities and schools and have yet to decide where they will work, which subjects they will teach, and whether they will join unions.

As we saw earlier, the research on this topic focuses mostly on inservice teachers, whose commitment differs greatly from that of PSTs. For example, Klassen and Chiu (2011) reported that PSTs' teaching commitment was generally higher than that of their inservice counterparts, even though some of them had yet to decide whether to enter the teaching profession. The contrasting differences between the two parties’ commitment arise from many factors, including the disparate social environments in which the two groups study or work. The differences are also influenced by the extent of their teaching experience.

As PSTs are being trained, their mission is to acquire knowledge, skills, and dispositions about teaching, while inservice teachers’ main responsibility is instruction, which, in addition to conducting lessons, includes assessing student work, managing the classroom, and communicating with parents (Evans & Tribble, 1986; Pigge & Marso, 1997; Reeves & Kazelskis, 1985). The two groups operate in overlapping worlds but with different rules, social networks, and cultures. This results in disparate behaviors and personal factors, and ultimately differing commitment profiles. For PSTs, professional commitment is dominant. For inservice teachers, professional and organizational commitment are likely to be equally prominent.

Furthermore, PSTs are experiencing a transition in their levels of experience and understanding of teaching. They are influenced by prior learning experience, idealized expectations of teaching, and insufficient teaching experience (Feiman-Nemser, 2001), and their commitment tends to change drastically as they deepen their understanding about teaching (Durksen & Klassen, 2012). On the other hand, inservice teachers have already achieved a measure of professional experience and their commitment therefore is comparatively well established; any changes in commitment tend to be less drastic than are to be found among PSTs (Day & Gu, 2007).

Given the different profile of PST commitment, conceptualizations explaining the motivations of formal employees, like Locke's (1997) Model of Work Motivation, may not be a good fit. We propose, therefore, the PST Commitment Model, built on a conceptual framework, to explain PST commitment more accurately. In the following sections, we explicate Locke's model, then present the PST Commitment Model, and finally, having framed the new model, we review the literature, whose findings serve to support and inform the constructs and relationships embedded in our proposed model.

Section snippets

Locke's Work Motivation Model

This section describes Locke's (1997) Work Motivation Model (Fig. 1), which informs our conceptualization of the PST Commitment Model. The Work Motivation Model is grounded on decades of empirical research and eight theories: goal theory, social cognitive theory, personality theory, VIE theory, attribution theory, justice theory, equity theory, and job characteristics theory. Locke's model systematically illustrates how employees set work goals, the mechanisms through which they pursue goals

PST Commitment Model

The PST Commitment Model (Fig. 2) is built on Locke's model. It incorporates some of the pivotal variables from Locke and assumes the eight theories upon which it rests (Fig. 1), but, given our focus on PST commitment and the differences between PSTs and inservice teachers, our new model differs from Locke's in many respects. This section describes our PST Commitment Model, focusing on the main constructs and their relationships. Further details are elaborated in the fourth section, grounded in

PST commitment seen from literatures: genesis, development, and consequences

In this section we review prior empirical studies related to PST commitment and framed by our model. Its aim is twofold. First, to display the academic contributions from prior research to the understanding of PST commitment. Second, to add detail to the Model and to corroborate its constructs and relationships.

Implications

Our model is the first to focus specifically on PST commitment. It presents a systematic description and explanation of the genesis, development and impact of PST commitment from a holistic perspective. As formulated, it entails conceptual, practical, and policy implications.

Conclusion

Built on Locke's Model of Work Motivation, we propose the PST Commitment Model that describes the genesis, development, and influence of PST commitment. Drawing on prior empirical studies on PST commitment and relevant important works about the teaching profession we present a thorough explication of our model: Teaching commitment originates from PSTs' value congruence, early involvement in teaching activities, and identification with the teaching profession. In teacher education, PST

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Jian Wang, Jesus Garcia, Elizabeth Spalding, Stephanie Millett and Raymond Flores for their encouragement, inspiration and writing assistance.

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