Job satisfaction and organizational commitment among Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke

Received Jul 4, 2020 Revised Sep 16, 2020 Accepted Oct 26, 2020 A high rate of teacher absenteeism in Merauke regency, Papua Province, Indonesia might be attributed to the low commitment of primary school teachers to educate the young people of Merauke, Indonesia. This study aimed to examine whether a positive and significant correlation exists between the organizational commitment and job satisfaction of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia. Applying a survey approach, two quantitative survey forms were distributed to a total of 157 teachers working in the Catholic primary schools of Merauke, Indonesia. A face-toface way of data collection was employed by having a prior consent from all the informants personally. Using Pearson’s correlation analysis as a tool for analyzing the collected data, the study showed a positive and significant correlation among the two surveyed variables as the amount of Pearson’s correlation coefficient (R) is .875 and the probability coefficient (ρ) is .000. The major conclusion of this study is that the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia, are significantly positively correlated. Practical implication of the finding is that the need for the school principals to promote the organizational commitment of teachers by enhancing their job satisfaction in order that the Catholic primary school students’ right to be well educated would be addressed adequately. Despite the possibility of the similar conclusion of this study with the previous studies conducting in other countries, the finding may support the current knowledge on the topic by giving a valuable information from an empirical context of Merauke, Indonesia.


INTRODUCTION
The success of a school would only be attained through the commitment of teachers in teaching the youth [1]. High absenteeism among teachers as indicated by Werang, et al. [2] and Werang, et al. [3] facing the regional education policy makers of Southern Papua in general and Merauke in particular has not just affected teacher-students interaction but also added the inability of primary school students to master reading, writing and arithmetic [4]. Despite of being in the classroom and teaching their students, many primary school teachers are more likely to engage with other enjoyable activities that can benefit them economically [5][6][7]. These pitiful conditions must be seen as indicators of the low level of teachers' commitment.
Teachers' commitment is of a critical function in developing students' capabilities as well as improving the students' academic achievement. This argument is undoubtedly due to the fact that teachers play a pivotal role in promoting economic and technological growth as well as in sustaining the well-being of the societies they serve today. The organizational commitment have differently described by scholars and researchers. The reason is that scholars and researchers from a variety of disciplines dealt with this matter on the nucleus of their own expertise. Not surprisingly, there are many meanings of organizational commitments available in literature [8]. For example, Kanter [9] defined organizational commitment as the readiness of social actors to contribute their power and fidelity to social systems, the attachment of personality systems for social interactions that are perceived as self-expressive, while Doĝan and Kiliç [10] defined organizational commitment as the wish of workers to remain in the organizations and commitment to the standards and objectives of the organizations. Whereas Mowday, et al. [11] defined organizational commitment as an affective connection as a consequence of a worker's way of identifying him/herself with, involving in, supporting the achievement of, and sharing the organizations' standards and objectives; a solid readiness to remain in a particular organization, and the preparedness to apply energy for the organization.
Having reviewed the accessible literature on how organizational commitment was defined, researchers [12,13] acknowledged three common arguments in the meaning of organizational commitment as the following: (a) organizational commitment as an affective attachment of a worker to a specific institution in which he or she works; (b) organizational commitment as a perceived costs related to the willingness to leave the institutions; and (c) organizational commitment as the personal willingness to stay in the organization [14]. Erdem and Kaya [15] posited that all the definitions of organizational commitment available in the literature are focused on the following two fundamental approaches: (a) attitudinal approaches: refers to the identification of workers with organizational standards and objectives and their personal wish to work all-out for the benefit of organizations, and (b) behavioral approaches; refers to the personal commitment derived from the commitment of workers to behavioral activities.
Organizational commitment has already been acknowledged by researchers [16][17][18][19][20][21][22] as closely linked to the job satisfaction. Cumbey and Alexander [23,1] viewed job satisfaction as an emotional state, differing from person to person or within a person from time to time. While Maslow [24] viewed job satisfaction as a result of an individual's set of needs, objectives, derived beliefs, practices, and hopes. Whereas Robbins and Judge [25] viewed job satisfaction as an enjoyable feeling stemming from the appraisal of its features. Luthans [26] pointed out three crucial facets of job satisfaction as follows: (a) job satisfaction is an expressive response to the job condition which can only be inferred but cannot be seen; (b) job satisfaction is sometimes determined by how well outcomes meet or exceed employees' hopes; and (c) job satisfaction indicates certain interrelated attitudes that arise from work itself, salaries, promotional opportunities, superior, and co-workers.
Employees' job satisfaction is to be affective and cognitive [27]. The affective aspect refers to the level of enjoyable feelings employees have about various facets of their job satisfaction [28]. The affective aspect accounts for the reactions or feelings related to the job [29]. An employee is satisfied or dissatisfied based upon his/her feelings at work [30]. Whereas the cognitive aspect refers to the level of individual's opinions, feelings, and reactions to the particular aspect of his/her job such as salary, working hours, benefits, and promotion opportunity [28]. The cognitive aspect establishes both meaning and significance of beliefs, circumstances, aspects, and outcomes [31] and, therefore, are regularly categorized as the content of ideas or beliefs about a manner in query, usually compared to the standards or expectations [32][33][34][35][36]. For instance, if an individual expects a certain degree of autonomy in performing a given task and is controlled, the difference between prospected and observed autonomy may produce a feeling of dissatisfaction [37,38].
The employees' satisfaction is crucial when they have to decide whether to leave or to stay within a particular organization [39]. Lane, et al. [36] further identified five factors relating to employees' job satisfaction as the following: wage, working situations, autonomy, communication, and commitment. Likewise Misener, et al. [40] identified five contributing factors to the job satisfaction of employees as follows: remuneration, promotional chance, occupational circumstances, direction, managerial performance, and relationship with work colleagues. In the similar way, Okpara [38] pointed out five factors responsible for employees' job satisfaction as follows: pay, promotion opportunities, supervision, work, and co-workers.
Chan, et al. [41] referred to low level of turnover, higher presence rate, better organizational citizenship behavior, and enlarged productivity as the outcome of worker's organizational commitment. Balci [42] posited that committed workers generally have a greater accountability rate, productivity, and faithfulness. In the same vein, Tadesse [43] asserted that highly committed workers tend to contribute encouraging impact to their performance, improve the quality of service, and reduce negative behavior.

577
Despite the available literature investigating the relationship between teachers' satisfaction and organizational commitment as it was aforementioned, we still feel the need for paying a closer look on this subject matter within the milieu of Merauke, Indonesia, to response the regional need of promoting committed and passionate teachers to educate the nation's youth. As the focus of this study is to examine whether the correlation exists between the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, one research problem guided this study is that does a positive and significant correlation exist between the satisfaction and organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia? To answer this research question, a survey research approach was employed.

RESEARCH METHOD
This study aimed at describing whether the correlation exists between the job satisfaction and organizational commitment among the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia. To attain this objective, the study employed a survey approach due to that of the following six profits: (a) great demonstration, (b) little budget, (c) suitable data collecting, (d) helpful statistical significance, (e) minor investigator prejudice, and (f) accurate result [44][45][46].
Using a convenient sampling, a total of 157 Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke was determined as informants. Data concerning the organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke were collected by distributing a questionnaire of 15 items. An Indonesian version of questionnaire was distributed to 157 primary school teachers and each of them was invited to respond the questionnaire on a four-point Likert's scale, rating from 1 (Strongly Disagree = SD) to 4 (Strongly Agree = SS). The English version of questionnaire includes: "I tell my relatives this is a great school to work for", "I am delighted to expose that I am part of this school", "I realize how the work I do contributes to the productivity of the school", "I have a stronger understanding of the school's vision", "I think that my values and school's values are very close", "I am able to make a lot of extra effort to help this school thrive", "I am extremely contended that I have chosen to work here rather than one of the other jobs I was considering when I entered this school", "I really care about the fate of this school", "The school encourages me to perform satisfactory", and "This school has a high level of optimism".
Data concerning the job satisfaction of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke were collected by distributing a questionnaire of 18 items that has previously been used by Wula, et al. [47]. An Indonesian version of questionnaire was distributed to 157 primary school teachers and each of them was invited to respond the questionnaire on a four-point Likert's scale, rating from 1 (Strongly Disagree = SD) to 4 (Strongly Agree = SS). The English version of questionnaire includes: "I was being paid a reasonable sum for the work I do", "My superior is satisfactorily competent in doing his/her job", "When I perform a great job, I get the credit for it", "I just like the individuals I work with", "The aids I get are great in this school", "Communications are great in this school", "People who do well at work have a decent chance of being promoted", "The goals of this schools are well established", "I feel a sense of satisfaction in doing my job", "I'm pleased with my chances of being promoted", "My work is entertaining".
In order that all distributed questionnaire were completely filled up by the informants, a face-to-face method was employed. Each informant was asked to fill-up the questionnaire and, then, returned it directly to our team. Field data were analyzed quantitatively utilizing the Pearson's correlation analysis by applying the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.
As aforementioned, there are multiple predicting variables for the high-or-low level of the organizational commitment that may confound the outcome of the study. Employing regression as a means of controlling confounding variables, in this setting, we want to focus only on the causal correlation between the surveyed variables; while other predicting variables for the organizational commitment are considered only because they might be confounders that can ruin the study [48]. One research assumption (Ha) was offered to be examined in this study is that the job satisfaction will be significantly positively correlated with the organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia.

Results
As aforementioned, the goal of this study was to determine whether there is a positive and significant correlation between the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia. The connection between the surveyed variables was statistically evaluated using the Pearson's correlation analysis by applying the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21. The result of statistical data analysis is presented in Table 1.  Table 1 shows that the job satisfaction of teachers is significantly positively correlated with organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia, as it was shown by the Pearson's correlation (R) value of .875 and the significant value (Sig. 2 tailed) of .000. Based on this statistical result, the research assumptions (Ha) that the job satisfaction will be significantly positively correlated with the organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia, is accepted.  (2-tailed) .000 N 157 157 Organizational commitment Pearson Correlation .875 ** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 157 157 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Since the coefficient value of R is .875 means that for every digit increase in job satisfaction will increase 0.875 digit in organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia, and for every digit decrease in job satisfaction will decrease 0.875 digit in organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia. It inferred that 87.5 % of the organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia, can be attributed to their job satisfaction. In this point of view, whenever teachers' organizational commitment increases means that teachers' job satisfaction increased.

Discussion
As the world is rapidly changed, teachers have to be on their toes at all times in order to meet todays' global challenges. Given the excessive pressure of modern society on the advance of the young people, teachers' commitment to teach the nation's youth is decisive for all the parties concerned [4] due to that of the wellbeing of any modern community depends upon the role played by the teachers [49]. In this point of view teachers' job satisfaction is not only good for teachers themselves but also for society as a whole. When teachers are satisfied with their work of teaching, they will commit to work hard and produce more than what are required from them. Teachers, on the other hand, will not devote themselves to work hard and harvest less than what are expected from them when they are not happy.
The more teachers are satisfied, the more they commit for the school effectiveness and the success of the nation's youth; the more teachers are dissatisfied, the less they commit for the school effectiveness and the success of the nation's youth. The results of this study followed the results of previous studies [16][17][18][19][20][21][22] that job satisfaction is closely related to the organizational commitment of teachers.
Bearing in mind the capacity of teachers in enhancing their own satisfaction and organizational commitment, researchers [50][51][52][53] suggested that principal leadership is a crucial factor in influencing the attitudes of teachers towards their teaching job. Since the school principals leadership is considered as closely connected to the principals' way of inspiring other school components to do the best for the school effectiveness and students' success alike [1], we do feel the need of fitting all the Catholic primary school principals of Merauke, Indonesia, with the suitable knowledge and skills for running the schools into its success.

CONCLUSION
Since teachers' teaching commitment is closely linked to students' academic achievement, it is important to ascertain what correlation exists between the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia. Based on the result of statistical analysis as it was discussed earlier, the conclusion of this study is that the satisfaction of teachers at work is significantly positively correlated with their organizational commitment in the Catholic primary schools of Merauke, Indonesia, as it was shown by the Pearson's correlation value 0f .875 and the significant value of .000. It meant that 87.5 % of teachers' commitment at work can be explained by teachers' satisfaction. The rest, 12.5 %, is explained by other predicting factors.

579
Results of the study might practically be necessary for the school principals and The Head of Catholic Education and School Foundation to set strategies of enhancing the job satisfaction to promote organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia. Without this paramount effort of improving the job satisfaction of teachers, we believe that organizational commitment of the Catholic primary school teachers of Merauke, Indonesia, would not be adequately addressed. Finding of the study may also be hypothetically add the current knowledge as it provides valuable information on the surveyed topic within the empirical context of Merauke, Indonesia. Future studies investigating other variables responsible for the teachers' organizational commitment is fully recommended.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This manuscript would not ever be completed without the blessings of God and the assistance of the Catholic primary school teachers, friends, and families. Thus, we would like to thank God for his endless love in guiding us to develop our potentialities. We also wish to express our gratitude to all the Catholic primary school teachers who participated actively in the research. Our deep gratitude also goes to our love ones (friends and families) for their constant love and support.