The investigation of relationships between teachers' participation in decision making and their organizational commitment: The case of İzmir

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between teachers' participation in the decision and their organizational commitment. The model of the research is the relational survey model, which is one of the quantitative research methods. The universe of the research consists of 8,047 teachers working in official secondary schools in the metropolitan districts of Izmir in the 2019-2020 academic year. The sample of the study, on the other hand, consists of 713 teachers working in 26 public secondary schools determined by proportional cluster sampling method from Buca, Karabağlar, Bornova, Konak and Karşıyaka districts, which are the first 5 metropolitan districts of Izmir. In the study, to measure teachers' perception of participating in decisions taken at school, 30 items with a reliability coefficient of 0.92 and a five-factor "Decision Participation Scale" developed by Yavuz (2001) was used. In addition, in order to determine teachers' perceptions of organizational commitment, the "Organizational Commitment Scale", which was adapted into Turkish by Boylu, Pelit, and Güçer (2007), with a reliability coefficient of 0.85, was used. According to the results of the research, it was observed that teachers generally agreed with the decisions taken at school at a medium level. Among the decisions taken, it was observed that the teachers mostly participated in the election of the head of the branch, while at least they participated in the decisions regarding the selection of the school administrative staff. It was observed that the gender, branch, seniority and school service durations of the teachers did not significantly affect the perceptions of participating in general decisions in schools. While female teachers were involved in student-related decisions more than male teachers, it was concluded that having different genders for teachers did not significantly affect their participation in decisions regarding teachers, teaching, functioning and commission. While teachers in the Arts and Sports branch was more involved in decisions regarding the functioning of the school than in other branches, it was observed that the fact that teachers were in different branches did not significantly affect their participation in decisions regarding teachers, students, teaching and commission. It was observed that teachers with less seniority participated in decisions related to teaching more than teachers with more seniority, while the difference in seniority of teachers did not affect their participation in decisions regarding the operation, teacher, student and commission. Teachers with less school service time participated in decisions regarding teaching, teacher and student more than teachers with long school service time. While the teachers in the Art and Sports branch were involved in decisions about the functioning of the school more than other branches, it was seen that the fact that the teachers were in different branches did not significantly affect their participation in the decisions related to the teacher, student, education and commission. While teachers with low seniority participate in decisions about teaching-related subjects more than teachers with high seniority, the difference in teachers' seniority did not affect their involvement in decisions regarding the functioning, teacher, student and commission. Teachers with low school service time participated in teaching, teacher and student-related issues more than teachers with high school service time. When teachers' views on their organizational commitment were examined, it was seen that their perceptions of organizational commitment and emotional, attendance and normative commitment sub-dimensions were at a moderate level in general. While differences in teachers' gender and branches did not significantly affect their organizational commitment, it was observed that differences in their seniority and length of service significantly affected their organizational commitment. It was observed that the difference in the seniority of the teachers and their duration of service significantly affected their attendance commitment towards their schools. It was observed that as the duration of school service and seniority among teachers increased, the attendance commitment of teachers towards their schools also increased. A positive low level significant relationship was found between teachers' organizational commitment and their participation in the decision. For this reason, it was determined that teachers' organizational commitment was a significant predictor of their perception of decision-making. It was observed that as making decision increased, the organizational commitment of teachers increased.