Every School District wants their teachers to be fully engaged in their profession. Although some faculty seem to be naturally engaged and commited, the day to day stresses and rewards they experience will affect the level of commitment. District administration typically institutes measures or incentives meant to enhance the working conditions experienced with the goal of enhancing the commitment of their faculty.
Firestone, W. A., Pennell, J. R. (1993). Teacher Commitment, Working Conditions, and Differential Incentive Policies. Review of Educational Research, 63 (4), 489-525.
Firestone and Pennell conducted a review of quantitative and qualitative studies which examined the working conditions of teachers and the effects of these working conditions on teacher commitment. The issues facing education at the time this article was written are still in play today. They point out how teacher commitment is connected to student success and that commitment continues to increase in importance as more demanding approaches to teaching and increased focus on students’ test results increase.
They first discuss what commitment is. They cite Kanter, 1968 and Mowdat, et al., 1985 when they say “the committed person believes strongly in the objects goals and values, complies with orders and expectations voluntarily, exerts considerable effort beyond minimal expectations for the good of the object, and strongly desires to remain affiliated with the object.” This statement describes the teacher who is internally motivated. She will do what is necessary to engage students and when they are successful learners, she feels rewarded. This feeling is an incentive to continue to work hard on behalf of the students and the school.
Firestone and Pennell describe a number of specific variables which they put under the broad heading of working conditions that can moderate a teacher’s feelings of commitment. These variables are: Job Design Characteristics (skill variety, task identity, and job significance), Autonomy, Participation, Feedback, Collaboration, Learning Opportunities, and Resources (orderly environment, administrative support, adequate physical conditions, adequate instructional resources, and reasonable workloads). They went on to describe how differential incentive programs can have an effect on each of the variables.
They pointed out that incentive theory varies from a commitment framework in that incentive theory focuses on improvement in the short term but has not shown to have long term effects. The authors discussed four major types of incentive programs: merit pay for individual teachers, the school incentive or merit school program, career ladder, and mentor program. Each of these types of incentive programs will have a different effect on the working conditions variables listed above. For example, incentive programs which provide merit pay can promote competition for scarce resources thereby reducing collaboration. On the other hand, career ladders and mentor programs can have the effect of enhancing collaboration since working with other teachers in built into the program.
The authors end their discussing by stating that, “the challenge will be to implement changed working conditions in ways that stimulate the recruitment of [a] new breed of teachers and build the commitment of those already employed.”
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