SCHOOL SAFETY MANAGEMENT AND TEACHERS’ ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AS PREDICTORS OF TEACHERS’ JOB PERFORMANCE IN EBONYI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated school safety management and teachers’ organizational commitment as predictors of teachers’ job performance in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Three research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a correlational research design. The population of the study comprised all public secondary school teachers in Ebonyi State, while a representative sample size of 294 public secondary school teachers was sampled using a multi-stage sampling procedure. Data were collected using three researchers’-developed instruments titled School Safety Management Questionnaire (SSMQ), Teachers’ Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (TOCQ), and Teachers’ Job Performance Questionnaire (TJPQ). The instruments were validated by experts in Educational Management and Measurement and Evaluation, while their reliability was established using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, which yielded acceptable reliability indices of 0.92, 0.89 and 0.91 for SSMQ, TOCQ and TJPQ respectively. Data collected were analyzed using regression analysis. Specifically, linear regression was used to answer research questions 1-2, while research question 3 was answered using multiple regression. Hypotheses 1-2 were tested using regression t-test, while regression ANOVA was used to test hypotheses 3. The findings of the study revealed that school safety management accounted for 7.3% of the variation in teachers’ job performance and significantly predicted teachers’ job performance in Ebonyi State. Teachers’ organizational commitment accounted for 16.9% of the variation in teachers’ job performance and also significantly predicted teachers’ job performance. Furthermore, school safety management and teachers’ organizational commitment jointly accounted for 20.4% of the variation in teachers’ job performance, indicating a significant joint predictive power on teachers’ job performance. The study concluded that both school safety management and teachers’ organizational commitment are significant predictors of teachers’ job performance, with organizational commitment having a stronger influence. It was therefore recommended among others that government and school administrators should improve school safety measures, provide supportive leadership, enhance teachers’ welfare, and promote professional development opportunities to strengthen teachers’ commitment and improve job performance.