Predictors of organizational socialization of English instructors at preparatory schools


Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2012

Öğrenci: FATMA ATAMAN

Danışman: YAŞAR KONDAKÇI

Özet:

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the socialization of English instructors at preparatory schools of Turkish universities at organization, department and task levels, and various individual (academic degree, teaching experience, length of employment at current work place, job satisfaction, commitment, and self-efficacy) and organizational (type of university, training, work conditions, knowledge sharing) variables. A pilot study with 225 instructors from four universities was conducted to confirm the validity of Haueter, Macan, and Winter’s (2003) Newcomer Socialization Questionnaire (NSQ) adapted into Turkish. Although the results of exploratory factor analysis in the pilot study did not reveal supportive results for the structures in NSQ, results of the confirmatory factor analysis indicated moderate fit for the structures in the scale. The main study was designed as a correlational study and the participants comprised of 737 English instructors working at 16 public and private universities selected from four cities in Turkey and Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus via cluster sampling. In order to collect the data, an inventory consisting of three parts made up of self-developed and pre-developed scales was utilized. The first part consisted personal questions about education, age, gender and length of employment of the participants. The second part included questions about training and work conditions of the participants. The items related to training and work conditions were developed by the researchers. The third and final part of the inventory consisted of five separate scales for measuring both the predicted and predictor variables. Turkish adaptation of three-dimensional Organizational Socialization Scale, which was self-developed, and the Turkish version of three-dimensional Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale developed and validated by Çapa, Çakıroğlu, and Sarıkaya,(2005), three-dimensional Organizational Commitment Scale developed and validated by Wasti (1997), Job Satisfaction and Knowledge Sharing scales developed by Kondakçı and Haser (2011), all of which were pre-developed were utilized to measure the predictors of organizational socialization. Both descriptive and inferential statistics techniques were used for the data analysis. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis for the self-developed Organizational Socialization Scale, and confirmatory factor analyses for the pre-developed Teachers’ Efficacy Scale, Organizational Commitment Scale, Job Satisfaction Scale and Knowledge Sharing Scale were conducted within the scope of this study. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses was carried out in order to investigate the relationship between organizational socialization and its predictors. Descriptive, inferential and multiple regression statistical analyses were performed by the software PASW Statistics 18 and the confirmatory factor analysis was performed by the software AMOS 18. The results of the main study revealed that socialization of English instructors to the organization, department, and task are significantly predicted by several organizational and individual variables. Among organizational variables knowledge sharing and training are the most significant ones; and among individual variables, job satisfaction, self-efficacy for instructional strategies, and affective commitment are the most significant ones. In this respect, the practitioners in the field should provide necessary conditions so as to promote and improve knowledge sharing, job satisfaction, appropriate training in the work place, as well as offering opportunities for instructors to improve their self-efficacy as a teacher and satisfaction with the job, which can lead to increase in affective commitment.