The relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction in Missouri public school teachers in 2023

Teacher recruitment and retention is a pressing issue in Missouri schools, and an increased understanding of why teachers are committed to their school districts may improve the efforts to remedy this problem. This quantitative study investigated the relationship between the organizational commitment and job satisfaction of K-12 public school teachers in Missouri in 2023. Teachers were surveyed on their level of job satisfaction using the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, and organizational commitment was measured using the Three-Component Model Employee Commitment Survey (TCM). In a sample of 342 teachers, the overall level of job satisfaction was near "satisfied." Teachers were least satisfied with their pay and the way policies were put into practice and were most satisfied with their job security and opportunities to assist others. The TCM examines three domains of commitment: affective (AC), normative (NC), and continuance (CC). In this study, the domain with the highest commitment score was AC, followed by CC, and lastly, NC, showing that teachers were committed to their school district because of desire or necessity rather than obligation. The relationship between teachers' job satisfaction and their commitment profile was measured with a chi-square test. The fully committed and AC-NC-dominant profiles were more likely to be "very satisfied" than "satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with their jobs. The AC-CC profile was more likely to be "satisfied" than "somewhat satisfied"; the CC-dominant profile was more likely to be "somewhat satisfied" than "very satisfied"; and the uncommitted profile was more likely to be "somewhat satisfied" than either "satisfied" or "very satisfied." Further research on the benefits of various commitment profiles in public school teachers may improve teacher retention.