Untangling the relationship between teacher self-efficacy, job satisfaction, and occupational commitment

While existing studies have substantially confirmed a three-dimensional occupational commitment model comprising affective, normative, and continuance components, previous studies of the antecedents of occupational commitment have mostly viewed such commitment as a broad, undifferentiated construct. Applying the three-dimensional model, this study examined how classroom-teaching teacher self-efficacy (TSE), teacher–student TSE, school decision-making TSE, and job satisfaction are related to teachers’ affective, normative, and continuance commitment. Structural equation modelling of survey data from 1,424 teachers in mainland China indicated that normative commitment had a closer relationship with teacher self-efficacy than the other two types of commitment did. Teacher-student TSE had the strongest association with affective commitment, and school decision-making TSE had the strongest association with normative commitment. Further, it was found that job satisfaction had a much greater mediating effect on affective and normative commitment than on continuance commitment.