What Keeps Faculty Members from Schools of Education in Higher Education Settings: Measuring Occupational Commitment

The purpose of this study is to expand our knowledge of how academic faculty members in schools of education view their careers by exploring occupational commitment. Ninety-one academic faculty members from 11 U.S. research institutions volunteered to participate in this quantitative survey study. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to determine if occupational commitment for this sample was modelled better by four or three factors. Results indicated that the data better fit a four-factor model of occupational commitment, with the following four factors: affective occupational commitment, normative occupational commitment, accumulated costs, and limited alternatives. Further, means comparison found that faculty members in higher education scored higher than workers in other fields on three of the four factors, with the most striking difference apparent for the limited alternatives factor. These results indicate that academic faculty members perceive they have few options for alternative careers and thus may feel more trapped in their careers than workers in other fields. Potential implications for teacher education administrators, research productivity, and doctoral education are discussed.