Predicting Teacher Commitment Using Principal and Teacher Efficacy Variables: An HLM Approach

The authors focused on public schools expected to meet performance goals before the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (2002) using data from the responses of 26,257 teachers and 6,711 principals to public school questionnaires from the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey. They examined relationships among measures of teacher commitment and teacher and principal efficacy beliefs. Principals' efficacy to influence curriculum, standards, policy, and spending, as well as their engagement in the operation of the school, impacted teacher commitment directly or indirectly through (a) teacher efficacy to enlist administrator support or through (b) teachers' collective efficacy beliefs. The value placed on a specific relationship would depend upon an individual's preferred form of teacher efficacy. Meeting performance goals did not affect teacher commitment. Implications for further research and practice are offered. Keywords: collective efficacyhierarchical linear modelprincipal efficacyteacher commitmentschool cultureSchools and Staffing Surveyteacher efficacy Notes 1. See CitationPohlmann (2004) for practices employed in exploratory factor analyses reported in The Journal of Educational Research. 2. Comrey and Lee's (1992) criteria for orthogonal factor loadings: "Excellent" for those .71 and above; "Very good" for those loading .64; and "Good" for those loading at .55. 3. The impact of these other variables on teacher turnover was addressed in CitationBorman and Dowling (2008).