探討公立高職應用外語科教師工作投入之研究

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(1)Factors Affecting Work Engagement: A Study of Teachers in Applied English Departments in Public Vocational High Schools by. Yi-Min Lin. A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of. MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION. Major: International Human Resource Development. Advisor: Chih-Chien Steven Lai, Ph.D.. National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan March, 2016.

(2) ACKONWLEDGEMENT Finally, I have gone through my thesis. It took me long time to struggle with my thesis since it was really tough. First of all, thanks Dr. Steven Lai navigated me to find the directions. Without my patient advisor, I could not make it at the very end. Secondly, I would like to thank those who helped me to reach potential participants, which was really important in completing my thesis. Without sufficient participants, this thesis could not be done. And, the most important helpers in my thesis was my parents. Thanks for accompanying me to reach my participants and supported me when I was down. Learning from doing was what I have gotten throughout the whole process. At first, I did not expect that I could do qualitative research since I seldom talked a lot or asked questions. After doing the first interview. Well, it was pretty surprised that I actually could do it. But with too many words with interviewees, the length of transcriptions was extended, which took me more time for typing. I was not good at expressing myself. So, it was what I have thought when I was writing this part. Yes, I MADE IT!.

(3) ABSTRACT Due to the rapid changing environment, the work conditions for teachers were not as stable as before. English ability was under the spotlight for the coming era of globalization; therefore, the study focused on the work environment of English teachers in Applied English Department to explore what influenced their engagement. Qualitative method was adopted in this study in order to find out what factors affect teachers’ engagement and to provide suggestions for teachers to stay engaged. Snowballing and purposive sampling were used to select potential participants, and in total there were 13 participants in this study. After analyzed data, the researcher found that students, teachers themselves, and the workload played the most important roles in the variation of teachers’ engagement. Interaction from students was immediate feedback for teachers to modify themselves. And responsibility and self-efficacy accounted for the reasons to stay engaged. Workload, especially non-teach-related, distracted teachers from teaching and cares for students and decreased the engagement of teachers. Future studies might take region and gender into account to examine whether these two factors have impacts on teachers’ engagement or not. Also, mixed method was recommended for future researchers to avoid the bias of self-reporting.. Keywords: teachers’ engagement, English teachers, applied English department, 12compulsory education. I.

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(5) TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKONWLEDEMENT ABSTRACT ........................................................................................... I TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................... III LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................. V LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................. VII CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ...................................................... 1 Background of the Study ...................................................................................1 Statement of the Problem ...................................................................................3 Significance of the Study ...................................................................................4 Purposes of the Study.........................................................................................5 Questions of the Study .......................................................................................5 Delimitation of the Study ...................................................................................6 Definition of Key Terms ....................................................................................6. CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................... 9 Definition of Work Engagement ........................................................................9 The Importance of Work Engagement ...............................................................10 Work Engagement Theories ...............................................................................12 Factors of Work Engagement .............................................................................15 Relevant Studies about Factors of Work Engagement .......................................18. CHAPTER III RESEARCH DESIGN............................................. 21 Research Method ...............................................................................................21 Research Framework .........................................................................................21 Research Participants and Criteria .....................................................................22 Data Collection ..................................................................................................25 Data Coding and Analysis ..................................................................................27 Validity and Reliability ......................................................................................30 Research Procedures ..........................................................................................32. CHAPTER IV FINDINGS & DISCUSSIONS ................................ 35 Factors of Teachers’ Engagement ......................................................................35 Differences and Similarities among Junior and Senior Teachers.......................51 Modification of Framework ...............................................................................55. CHAPTER V COUNCLUSION & SUGGESTIONS ..................... 57 III.

(6) Conclusions ........................................................................................................57 Limitations .........................................................................................................60 Suggestions ........................................................................................................60. REFERENCES ...................................................................................... 65 APPENDIX A-1: COVER LETTER ................................................... 69 APPENDIX A-2: COVER LETTER ................................................... 70 APPENDIX B-1: CONSENT FORM .................................................. 71 APPENDIX B-2: CONSENT FORM .................................................. 72 APPENDIX C-1: INTERVEW QUESTIONS .................................... 73 APPENDIX C-2: INTERVEW QUESTIONS .................................... 74. IV.

(7) LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 The Background of Interview Participants ………………………………………. 24 Table 3.2 The Example of Coding ………………………………………………………….. 28. V.

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(9) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 The JD-R model of work engagement ....................................................................13 Figure 3.1 Conceptual framework ...........................................................................................22 Figure 3.2 The figure of categorizing process .........................................................................28 Figure 3.3 The process of data analysis ...................................................................................30 Figure 3.4 Research procedures flowchart...............................................................................34 Figure 4.1 List of factors affecting teachers’ engagement .......................................................35 Figure 4.2 Reformed framework..............................................................................................55. VII.

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(11) CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. In the introduction chapter, an insight to this research will be provided and presented the background, problem statement, significance of the study, and definitions of key terms in an effort to better understand the focus of the study.. Background of the Study In the past decade, engagement has emerged and gained its popularity in both academia and consulting industry (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008). The article of Kahn in 1990 was the first major article that introduced the concept of engagement in workplace settings (Jeung, 2011).The main outcomes of engagement includes not only employees’ overall satisfaction, commitment, and in-role and extra-role behavioral performance but also customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, productivity and so forth (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002; Macey & Schneider, 2008; Rich, LePine, & Crawford, 2010; Saks, 2006). For instance, engagement has been found to have positive relationship with job attitudes (Saks, 2006; Saks & Gruman, 2014), business unit performance (Harter et al., 2002), in-role and extra-role performance (Halbesleben & Wheeler, 2008), and organizational citizenship behavior (Bakker & Bal, 2010; Rich et al., 2010; Runhaar, Konemanna, & Sanders, 2013; Saks, 2006), and be negatively related to turnover intentions (Saks, 2006; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Aside from these piles of papers that explored advantages of work engagement, there are some researchers devoted to revealing the opposite impact of work engagement. For example, they have indicated that high work engagement may result in poor performance due to the illness. Teachers’ engagement has gained increased attention from researchers and education policy makers in recent days for the following major reasons. First of all, schools are faced with growing demands consist of higher expectations regarding pupil achievement, higher competitiveness in recruiting student, and enhanced diversity in the classroom (OECD, 2006). To fulfill these demands and to make the school success depended more and more on teachers. 1.

(12) Secondly, effectiveness of teachers, liked with engagement, is the critical factor result in variation in student achievement (Klassen et al., 2012). Thirdly, it is believed that engaged teachers are unlikely to be burnout and associated health problems (Hakanen, Bakker, & Schaufeli, 2006; Klassen et al., 2012). Fourthly, “engaged teachers are more willing to take on additional duties beyond the classroom” (Klassen et al., 2012, p. 318). Last, either researcher or people understand the psychological make-up of effective teachers (Klassen, Yerdelen, & Durksen, 2013); nevertheless, teaching is the foundation of nurturing children and an important profession that goes beyond merely offering information to students in class. A teacher is often regarded as a role model to students. Therefore, it is important to know whether teachers are engaged in their work and to understand what factors can eliminate burnout and the intention to quit among teachers since “teaching is stressful and teachers show high levels of exhaustion and cynicism, the core dimensions of burnout” (Hakanen et al., 2006, p.495). The overall situation changes dramatically that, nowadays, low birth rate is raged around the world, especially Taiwan. This phenomenon obviously cuts down the need for teachers and causes schools shut down. The number of teacher in schools is shrinking; however, their responsibility is increasing and heavier. That is, the work environment for teachers in this era is tough and stressful. Aside from the change of the composition of the society, globalization is another transformation of the overall situation, which brings new issue for teachers. English competency cannot be equated to internationalization; however, it is the key to bridge both Taiwan and students themselves to the global. Since Taiwan joined World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2002, it made the great needs for English competency in order to adapt to the changing environment. From 2004, the Ministry of Education announced a series of financial subsidy programs mainly to enhance internationalization in post-secondary education (Chou & Chen, 2012). On May 20th in 2011, Executive Yuan passed the bill “Study-in Taiwan Enhancement Program” to create the environment for Taiwanese students to practice second. 2.

(13) language (Ministry of Education, 2011). These indicated that the government attempts to encourage students to expand their horizon by implementing new policy to assist pupils to strengthen their English competency and global perspective. On one hand, Taiwan government sheds the light on the English competency of Taiwan residents, and on the other hand, Taiwan introduced a brand-new educational policy, 12-year Compulsory Education, which is derived from the institution from European and Western countries to universalize education to every resident in the country.. Statement of the Problem Most of the concept of engagement has been discussed in work; however, as former researchers and Bakker et al. (2011) recommended the engagement model may need to be fully examined whether it holds in other life domains, for example, education and sport. There are some studies focus on engagement in educational field –a study done by Hakanen et al. (2006) that uses Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model to examine how teachers’ working conditions are related through work-related well-being to their health problems and to organizational commitment- but when compared with studies in practice, the exploration in education still remains a few (Klassen et al., 2013; Kong, 2009). Study conducted by Aamir, Ullah, Habib and Shah (2010) found that the primary sources of teachers’ stress were due to institutional pressure and ever changing government policy. From 1968 till 2014, Taiwan implemented Grade 1-9 Curriculum of Elementary and Junior High School Education, which literally included from 1st grade to 9th grade. In 2011, Taiwan President Ma announced that in 2014 Taiwan would adopt new education policy called 12-year Compulsory Education, which added High school into compulsory education. It needs to be probed whether this policy has any positive or negative influence on teachers’ emotions and then lead to the change of their engagement. In this study, the researcher would also emphasize on 12-year Compulsory Education, 3.

(14) which had made waves in Taiwan’s education. Once announced the policy, not only newspaper but also platforms for online socializing were full of debates. It brought pros for student to have much more accesses to enter high school, which is greatly different from the former education system and somehow eased students from educational competition (Hwang, 2014). However, this policy brought cons and concerns that the changing and unstable policy makes students and teachers in panic because of uncertainty of precaution to the developing policy. Without supplementary measure of entrance examination, the amount and the quality of students may be unevenly matched. This is undoubtedly a brand-new challenge to high school teachers, who as the first line to interact with these students enrolling in the school through new policy. In addition to the new implemented policy, the world becomes globalization. Unquestionably, international education is a crucial key for Taiwan to get involved with the international community which outstands the importance of English teacher and their engagement that affected how students learn language and their attitude and acceptance of the global issue. Aside from factors mentioned above to influence the variation of engagement, main reasons of choosing teaching as a career should be taken into account. As Adekola (2010) stated, hardly had researchers pay attention to the motives in relation to the level of engagement of teachers, yet factors that made teachers being highly engaged were still remain unproved. The researcher had not reached related literature to prove the relationship between personal background and work engagement either; however, it was the concern the researcher tried to discover in this study.. Significance of the Study Through analyzing the collected data, it reflected the difficulties of nowadays teachers, and indicated that there is a need for either the government or the public to improve the work environment and condition of teachers in order to enhance the quality of education since there 4.

(15) were increasing teach-related or non-teach-related tasks, which distracted teachers from their core job of teaching students (Van Droogenbroeck, Spruyt, & Vanroelen, 2014). With the findings of this study, the future potential English teachers for applied English department could understand how and what might have impacts on their engagement (e.g. students’ misbehaviors, working conditions) and helped them come up with the solutions or alternatives to enhance their own engagement and keep themselves remain engaged. Center for Teacher Education, which offers information, advisement, and support for students interested in pursuing a career in teaching, could help potentials to grasp the view of their future career in practical and urge them to overcome the deficiency between themselves and the requirement of being a high school English teacher.. Purposes of the Study Plenty of researches beforehand enumerated a number of factors that affect employees’ engagement in general. Although there are many already-discovered factors, what changed teachers’ engagement is not transparent in the education field so that this research aims to find out what factors that affect the engagement of teachers in public vocational high school in Taiwan. And also explored why would these factors trigger the variation of work engagement, There still something remained unrevealed, that is, why these factors above could have impact on teachers, and how teachers cope with both positive and negative factors. With this study, the researcher adopted qualitative approach (1) to explore what and how factors that affect work engagement among teachers and (2) to explore the differences and similarities in work engagement between junior and senior English teachers.. Questions of the Study Based on the research purpose, three questions of this study are proposed as followings: 1. What factors that affect work engagement among English teachers? 2. What are the differences in work engagement between junior and senior English 5.

(16) teachers? 3. What are the similarities in work engagement between junior and senior English teachers?. Delimitation of the Study The study focused on Public vocational high school teachers in Applied English Department. Due to time-concern, the study selected 7 schools out of 11 schools in Taiwan. Based on the percentage of school in each area, targeted schools were listed. Although the study included all areas in Taiwan (e.g. north, west, east, and south), the number of participants were uneven. Another concern was whether teachers in other fields (e.g. math, science teachers), in junior high, or in the university would respond differently due to diverse working environment. And, teachers in the private school are another concern since it might be the business-oriented institution. Last, separated seniority (e.g. 0.6-5 years/ more than 6 years) was set to understand the differences between junior and senior teachers.. Definitions of Key Terms The key terms of the study were defined as following.. Work Engagement: In this study, work engagement refers to a marker of intrinsic motivation and is related to positive outcomes for teachers and students (Bakker & Bal, 2010; Klassen et al., 2012).. Burnout: Refers to a syndrome of exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy (Hakanen et al, 2006).. Job Demands: Refers to represent characteristics of the job that potentially results in strain, in case they exceed the employee’s adaptive capability (Bakker, Demerouti, Hakanen, & Xanthopoulou, 2007).. 6.

(17) Job Resources: Refers to “physical, psychological, social or organizational aspects of the job that are functional in achieving work goals, stimulate personal growth and development” (Mauno, Kinnunen, & Ruokolainen, 2007, p. 152).. Teacher of Applied English Department in Public Vocational High School: Refers to qualified English teacher who teaches English in Applied English Department in public vocational high school.. 7.

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(19) CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW. Engagement has been under the spotlight in recent decades, which has been discussed in several aspects from definition to its theories. For establishing the theoretical foundation of the study, this chapter presented definition of work engagement, and main factors leading to the variation of engagement. Within the following paragraphs one after another.. Definition of Work Engagement Engagement is not a brand-new idea in these years; however, researchers and practitioners do not have consensus on definition for the term engagement (Markos & Sridevi, 2010). In other words, there are several definitions of engagement (Jeung, 2011; Markos & Sridevi, 2010; Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, & Bakker, 2002). Although the phrase “employee engagement” and “work engagement” interchangeably are used in other studies, the researcher adopted work engagement, which is more specific that it refers to the relationship of employees with their work (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2010). Kahn, one of the first scholars, defined engagement as the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performance (Kahn, 1990). Three dimensions of psychological conditions in Kahn (1990) were meaningfulness, safety and availability. Meaningfulness refers to a sense of return on investments of self in role performance, safety means a sense of being able to show and employ self without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status, or career, and availability is a sense of possessing the physical, emotional, and psychological resources necessary for investing self in role performances (Jeung, 2011). The most often used definition was proposed by Schaufeli et al. (2002) that defined engagement as “an active, positive work-related state that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (p.74). Vigor refers to high levels of energy and mental resilience while 9.

(20) working and the willingness to put effort in one’s work (Hakanen et al, 2006); dedication involves a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge, and absorption is characterized by being fully indulged and happily engrossed in one’s work, whereby time passes quickly and the individual has difficulties in detaching from work.” Harter et al. (2002) defined engagement as the individual’s involvement and satisfaction with as well as enthusiasm for work, which according to Jeung (2011) was the notable achievement of defining the concept of engagement in practice. However, the concept meant that it was the individual that determine to be engaged in their career. Another definition of work engagement correlated to the idea of Harter’s that “work engagement refers to the voluntary allocation of personal resources directed at the range of tasks demand by a particular vocational role” (Klassen et al., 2013, p.34). The test of antecedents and consequences to work engagement in the academic literature was first explicated by Saks (2006). Engagement is defined as “a distinct and unique construct that consists of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components that are associated with individual role performance” (Saks, 2006, p.602; Shuck & Wollard, 2010, p. 97). Aside from researchers, consultancy firms in business are interested in engagement and conceptualize how engagement should be. For example, Development Dimensions International (DDI) stated three dimensions are included in engagement: (1) cognitive, (2) affective and (3) behavioral. And, Hewitt indicated that the individual is regarded as engaged employees through three general behaviors. First, they hold positive attitude toward people around them. Second, they have high sense of belongings in the organization despite there are other opportunities outside. Last, they contribute more than they are asked to be.. The Importance of Work Engagement Due to the confusion, disagreement, and the overlapping concept with other more established constructs such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job 10.

(21) involvement(Saks, 2006; Suck, Ghosh, Zigarmi, & Nimon, 2012), work engagement is questioned as an old wine in new bottles (Macey & Schneider, 2008; Saks & Gruman, 2014) . That is, the distinctiveness of work engagement has been questioned. But with follow-up researches, the conceptual of engagement gradually can be distinguished and is said to be related to but distinct from other constructs in organizational behaviors (Saks, 2006). Although work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) can be easily confused, they are totally different concept. Work engagement differs from OCB because engagement is not an attitude and focuses on individual’s formal role performance while OCB involves voluntary and informal behaviors. Furthermore, work engagement does not directly refer to any specific individual, object, or event (Runhaar et al., 2013). Work engagement also varies from job satisfaction. A lack of conceptual clarity in distinguishing work engagement from satisfaction results in using similar items to measure these two concepts. The measures of work engagement have high similarity to those of job satisfaction, albeit with a new label (Macey & Schneider, 2008). Harter et al. in 2002 equated work engagement with satisfaction and involvement; however, in contemporary definitions of engagement, job involvement is regarded as a facet of work engagement, a part of work engagement but not equivalent to it (Salanova, Agut, & Peiro, 2005). In other words, the concept of work engagement is broader than involvement that it encompasses energy and efficacy (Macey & Schneider, 2008). The importance of work engagement showed in the study of Bakker and Demerouti (2009) that engaged policemen use more active style to remove or rearrange stressors. Also, in the study of Klassen et al. (2012), they found that teachers who are less engaged while teaching tend to feel externally regulated and be motivated in order to avoid punishment and gain rewards. On the other hand, engaged teachers possess an internal locus of causality, which lead to higher students’ self-determined academic behaviors. However, engaged people are different. 11.

(22) from workaholics; instead, they have levels of energy and are full of enthusiasm for their work. They are more likely to be fully immersed in the work so that time flies (Baker & Demerouti, 2008).. Summary Work engagement emphasized not only performance of individuals but also their attitude toward company and colleagues. That is, it influenced both internal and external of individuals. Overall, it brought more positive effects than negative effects on company; therefore, the concept of work engagement should not be ignored.. Work Engagement Theories When it comes to theories, researchers met the same problem as definition of engagement that there are also several models and theories of engagement (Saks & Gruman, 2014). The root of these theories and models are from two primary areas of research: job burnout and employee well-being (Maslach & Leiter, 1997) and an ethnographic study done by Kahn in 1990 focusing on personal engagement and dis engagement. The first theory of work engagement can be found in the ethnographic study of Kahn (1990). His participants were summer camp counselors and members of an architecture firm and were interviewed about their moments of engagement and disengagement at work. The study found that an individual’s degree of engagement was related to the experience of three psychological conditions: meaningfulness, safety, and availability and that the greater these three conditions are, the more engaged employees will be in their work role (Saks & Gruman, 2014). The theory of Kahn was tested by May et al. (2004) and found that three psychological conditions meaningfulness, safety, and availability were significantly related to engagement. They also found separately predictors toward three conditions: job enrichment and role fit have positive relationship with meaningfulness; rewarding co-worker and supportive supervisor relations were positively related to safety whereas adherence to co-work norms and self12.

(23) consciousness were negative predictors of safety; and resources available had positive relationship with availability while participation in outside activities was a negative predictor. The second theory of engagement is derived in the literature from burnout literature which describes engagement as the positive antithesis of burnout (Saks, 2006). According to Maslach et al. (2001), burnout and engagement are related to six areas of work-life: workload, control, rewards and recognition, community and social support, perceived fairness, and values. The closer the individual gets to these six areas of work-life, the more engagement the individual would get, and vice versa. Another theory which also has its basis in the burnout literature is the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). JD-R model was originally used as the model of burnout by Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, and Schaufeli (2001). In the model, high job demands result in burnout, which leads to exhaustion. And, a lack of job resources causes withdrawal behavior from work.. Figure 2.1. The JD-R model of work engagement. Adapted from “An evidence-based model of work engagement,” by A. B. Bakker, 2011, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(4), p.267. Copyright 2011 by Association for Psychological Science.. The JD-R model as figure 2.1 showed can divide working conditions into two categories: job demands and job resources. Job demands refer to represent characteristics of the job that 13.

(24) potentially results in strain, in case they exceed the employee’s adaptive capability (Bakker et al., 2007). Usual types of job demands are work overload, job insecurity, role ambiguity, role ambiguity, time pressure, and role conflict. On the other hand, job resources refer to “physical, psychological, social or organizational aspects of the job that are functional in achieving work goals, stimulate personal growth and development” (Mauno et al., 2007, p. 152). Employees can obtain job resources from the organization (e.g. pay, career opportunities, job security), social relations such as supervisor and coworker support (Saks & Gruman, 2014), and from the task itself, for instance, skill variety, task identity task significance, autonomy, performance feedback (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Social exchange theory (SET) is a stronger theoretical rationale for explaining work engagement, which supplement to “explain why individuals will respond to these conditions with varying degrees of engagement” (Saks, 2006). Relationships between parties are based on a state of reciprocal interdependence. It means that there are certain “rules” of exchange, usually involving reciprocity or repayment rules; for example, the actions of A party lead to a response by B party (Cropanzano & Mictchell, 2005, Saks, 2006). The concept of SET is consistent with the description of engagement in the study of Robinson, Perryman, and Hayday (2004) that it’s a two-way relationship between the employer and employee. Self-determination theory (SDT) is a theory of two overarching forms of motivations: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation meant that the individuals devote to doing an activity based on their own enjoyment and interest. While extrinsic motivation referred to the individuals do a thing for instrumental reasons such as gaining rewards, avoiding punishment, boosting one’s ego and many other things. SDT has been in place for 30 years and has been applicate to numbers of fields such as education, healthcare, relationships, organizations and so forth. Also, SDT is multidimensional concept that can help the individual to distinguish different forms of motivation, which has been said to be a guide for future. 14.

(25) research (Meyer & Gagne, 2008). From SDT perspective, it referred work engagement to “a marker of intrinsic motivation and is related to positive outcomes for teachers and students” (Bakker, & Bal, 2010; Klassen et al., 2012, p.319). Teacher filled with engagement are able to deal with complex demands with energy, motivation and effectiveness. Engagement; hence, has been shown to lead to higher calibers of performance, sedulous assiduousness, and ingeniousness. When individual devote to a task they are interested in, which is called intrinsic motivation, triggered their desire either to boost their ego or gain reward, that is, the extrinsic motivation. When the concept of SDT combines with both JD-R model and SET can strengthen work engagement. Because JD-R model interacts with SET that when people receive supports either from the organization or from colleagues, they are more willing to devote to their work and organization. The researcher regarded that if one does one thing they enjoyed with support will have more chance to success and possibility to enhance engagement.. Factors of Work Engagement Antecedents of work engagement are defined as “constructs, strategies, or conditions that precede the development of work engagement and that come before an organization or manager reaps the benefits of engagement-related outputs” (Wollard & Shuck, 2011, p.432). It is possible that the antecedents of engagement can be differed by occupational group (Mauno et al., 2007). Basically, there are organizational-level and individual-level antecedents, and other antecedents such as job resources as well as job demands.. Organizational Factors When it comes to antecedents that drive the development of engagement at the organizational level, basic employee/ human needs is the key. By examining what employee needs, the organization can understand in what circumstance work engagement occurs. This may explain why some people have tried to intrinsically motivate work teams comprised of 15.

(26) varying personalities and perceptions on an organizational level (Wollard & Shuck, 2011). Through a series of empirical analyses the importance of effects of task variety, task identity, task significance, task autonomy and feedback to the level of engagement has been supported (Jeung, 2011). Other organizational variables are regarded as predictors of engagement such as perceived organizational support (Saks, 2006), rewards and recognition (Koyuncu, Burke, & Fiksenbaum, 2006), coworker relations (May et al., 2004), congruence between individual and organizational values (Rich et al., 2010), the role of culture (Shuck, Reio, & Rocco, 2011), job rotation (Bakker, Albrecht, & Leiter, 2011) and various types of leadership (Salanova, Lorente, Chambel, & Martinez, 2011). In addition, job resources were also considered as significant antecedents of engagement (Bakker et al., 2007; Jeung, 2011). Bakker and Demerouti (2009) mentioned that job resources act as buffers to eliminate negative effects by demanding aspect of work. Also, they stated that when job resources particularly important when teachers are in high level of job demands. According to Bakker et al. (2007), there are six major motivators toward either commitment or engagement among teachers: job control, supervisor support, access to information (Hakanen et al., 2006), school climate, innovativeness, and appreciation. On the contrary, job demands may become stimuli to burnout when require high effort to sustain an expected performance level. There are three job demands that are regarded as major factors toward psychological stress among teachers: (1) disruptive behaviors, (2) work overload (Hakanen et al., 2006), and (3) a poor physical work environment (Bakker, Demerouti, & Euwema, 2005).. Individual Factors Individual antecedents refer to “constructs, strategies, and conditions that were applied directly to or by individual employees and that were believed to be foundational to the development of work engagement” (Wollard & Shuck, 2011, p.433). Some specific individual 16.

(27) variables have been proven to be drivers of engagement (Jeung, 2011). First of all, some of demographic factors such as perceived age similarity, race, and gender difference were regarded as the antecedents of engagement. In an empirical study done by Avery, McKay and Wilson (2007), 901 employees in United Kingdom were examined in order to figure out the relationship between perceived age similarity and engagement. They found that the engagement level increased if the employees were highly satisfied with their similar aged coworkers. As for race, Jones and Harter (2005) reported that the more racial diversity at the working environment is the higher intention to stay do employees show. It seemed that diversity within the organization is an important factor to deduct turnover rate. Besides, according to Jeung (2011), the importance of the gender difference on engagement was that “female employees seemed to be more engaged than male employees” (p.61). On the contrast, a research showed that there were no differences either between race and work engagement or between age and work engagement. In this situation, the correlation with age and race with work engagement was still remain undiscovered. According to Langelaan, Bakker, Van Doornen, and Schaufeli (2004), individual personality played an important role. They found that extraversion is significant positive related to engagement while it held a negative relationship between need for stability and engagement. In 2007, Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, and Schaufeli examined other personal resources (e.g. self-efficacy, self-esteem, and optimism), and found that these resources were useful hints to predict engagement. Motivation for career was so important that should not be ignored. Motives could be divided into three extrinsic, intrinsic and altruistic types. Take teacher as an example. In education field, extrinsic motives can be referred to salary, pension or psychological benefits, and intrinsic motives covered perceived of teaching profession, while altruistic motives deal with the willingness to work with children, the desire to have influences on the future generation and etc. (Adekola, 2010).. 17.

(28) Not only personal but also organizational factors will have influences on the engagement of an individual. And it seems that the interplay between individual and organizational antecedents also causes the change of the engagement. Therefore, these two categorical factors cannot be exactly separated when taking them into account.. Summary Work engagement influences a number of dimensions such as organizational satisfaction and involvement, both of which are important to employees in the organization. It is obvious that work engagement is unique and significant to either the business or the academic. As for the theory, the researcher is unable to take any theory as the only theory. On the contrary, the researcher considers it to be the combination of SET, SDT and JD-R model. Individual chooses to devote themselves to their work and varies their engagement based on the internal factors and external factors they have encountered in the reality. Last, definitions of work engagement are related to internal facets, among them the researcher agrees with the one stated in SDT perspective that work engagement noted intrinsic motivation and correspond to positive outcomes to teachers and students.. Relevant Studies about Factors of Work Engagement Relevant studies about factors of work engagement is mainly included in Utrecht Work engagement Scale and Instrument developed by Rich, Lepine and Crawford. The following paragraph discussed the contents of these two scales.. Utrecht Work Engagement Scale Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES; Schaufeli et al., 2002) was the most widely used instrument among engagement-related researches (Jeung, 2011). Also, UWES has been successfully psychometrically validated in The Netherlands and elsewhere (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Van Rhenen, 2009). Originally, there are two versions of UWES: a full version with 17-item (six items for 18.

(29) vigor, five for dedication, and six for absorption), and a 9-item short version (three items for each scale) which said to show more stable psychometric characteristics (Klassen et al., 2012). The researchers adapted questions based on their needs of the study; for example, in the research of Hakanen and Koivumäki (2014), they modified the questionnaire into three-item UWES (one item for each subdimension). Despite different version of UWES, the intercorrelation between three-item and shorten 9-item UWES was .95 which meant three-item UWES highly related conventional version.. Instrument developed by Rich, Lepine and Crawford There were another scale developed and validated by Rich et al. (2010). An 18-item full version (six items for emotional, physical and cognitive engagement) was adopted in the study of Yukin and Erdil (2012), whereas Zacher, Chan, Bakker, and Demerouti chose only three highest loading items from each of three dimensions. It is said that the instrument effectively reflected Kahn’s original concept of engagement; however, it still needs future researchers to examine the validity of this instrument in either various cultural or industrial contexts (Jeung, 2011).. Summary Most researchers decided to adopt UWES as their instrument to measure work engagement; however, there has been criticism that some contradictory items included in UWES focusing on the psychological conditions of engagement, rather than engagement itself (Jeung, 2011). Therefore, the future researchers might consider adopting different scale or innovating new scale for measuring work engagement.. 19.

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(31) CHPATER III. RESEARCH DESIGN. In this chapter, the research approach, research framework, research procedures, research participants and sampling criteria, data collection, and data analysis will be described.. Research Method This study adopted the qualitative approach since it involves interpretative materials which use interviews, conversations, recording, and memos (Mertens, 2005). The purpose of the study aims to understand what factors influence the engagement of teachers. According to Mertens (2005), the qualitative method was suggested when the research questions included “in-depth information” or mainly focused on “individualized outcomes.” Also, Patton (2002) noted that qualitative methods may be appropriate for considering personal contact and information from a qualitative study. The focus of the study was to figure out antecedents of the work engagement to junior teachers, to compare drivers with those of experienced teachers, and to explore what makes the difference between junior and experienced teachers. Therefore, the study applied qualitative methods to discover factors of work engagement during interviews, and to extract for the further comparison.. Research Framework In Figure 3.1, the framework of this study has been provided. As described in chapter II, there are two categories of antecedents, which will cause both engagement and the change of engagement. They are organizational antecedents and individual antecedents. Organizational antecedents meant job resources and job demands while individual antecedents referred to age, gender, and personality.. 21.

(32) Figure 3.1.Conceptual framework. According to Aamir et al. (2010), government policy has impact on teachers’ stress which leads to the change of engagement. The new 12-year compulsory education policy can be assumed to have either positive or negative influence on teachers’ engagement.. Research Participants and Criteria For fulfilling the research purposes, in-depth interview was adopted in the study. During the process, criteria were set in order to reach appropriate participants for data collection. About the criteria and participants details were as follows.. Criteria The researcher applied purposive sampling method to investigate participants’ inner thoughts and variation about their engagement in teaching. Purposive sampling is adopted when the selected cases are unique and especially informative (Neuman, 2010); therefore, participants in this study were chosen purposefully instead of randomly. Snowball sampling was also adopted in this study, in which the researcher started from interviewed participant, and asked him/her to refer any other English teachers who has acquaintance with him/her (either at the same school or not) and also fit in the criteria mentioned below. 22.

(33) In order to narrow down to the target population, the criteria below are listed: 1. They are full-time teachers in public vocational high school 2. They teach English in schools including classes in Applied English Department 3. They are junior teachers who have teaching experiences within 5 years, or they are experienced teachers with more than 5-years teaching experiences.. Participants During the process of reaching participants, the researcher encountered the most trouble difficulty that there were insufficient participants to join the research. The researcher discussed with the advisor and then added one more group into the criteria, so that participants could be divided into two main groups: (1) English teachers who have only 0.6- to 5-year teaching experience in Applied English, and (2) English teachers who have over 5-year experience in Applied English. The variety in the target population was to make sure that the views of junior and senior teacher are included in this research. 13 teachers were selected to join the research interviews. In order to have an idea about where these participants were from, Table 3.1 showed the background of this group of people. Among all the research participants, all of them were females, coming from seven schools. Name of participants was randomly selected by the researcher, which lowered the possibility of revealing who participants were. The ages of the research participants were in the range to avoid the participant been recognized. And in total there were six experienced English teachers and seven junior English teachers attended this research.. 23.

(34) Table 3.1 The Background of Interview Participants NO.. Name. Region. Gender. Age*. Seniority. Position. 1. Abby. Central. Female. 36-40. 8 years. Administrator. 2. Betty. Central. Female. 26-30. 10 months. Administrator. 3. Charlotte. South. Female. 31-35. 10 months. Home-room teacher. 4. Diana. Central. Female. 31-35. 2 years. Home-room teacher. 5. Elle. Central. Female. 31-35. 9 years. Home-room teacher. 6. Fannie. North. Female. 41-45. 14 years. Home-room teacher. 7. Greta. North. Female. 26-30. 5 years. Home-room teacher. 8. Haley. East. Female. 36-40. 3 years. Administrator. 9. Irene. East. Female. 31-35. 8 years. Administrator. 10. Jocelyn. Central. Female. 41-45. 15 years. Home-room teacher. 11. Kayla. Central. Female. 36-40. 13 years. Subject teacher. 12. Lucia. North. Female. 36-40. 4 years. Administrator. 13. Melissa. Central. Female. 31-35. 5 years. Home-room teacher. *Note. To avoid the participant been recognized, the age of participants will show in range.. 24.

(35) Data Collection This study would collect data mainly through in-depth interview with public vocational high school English teachers in Taiwan. In the following paragraph, the development of the instrument will be presented, including the process of content development, and what items are involved within the interview.. Instrument Development The researcher discovered that most of studies on engagement used quantitative approach; therefore, the researcher made the decision to adopt qualitative approach to have further understanding of engagement. Content development process When doing literature review, the researcher found most studies adopt Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) to measure engagement, where the researcher analyzed and regarded the statements in UWES as keywords for identified whether the interviewees is engaged or not. Although grasped ideas from UWES, the researcher came up with other questions related to teachers’ work, which UWES or other scales do not includes, questions based on listed factors in literature review and took research questions into account as well. How and what are the item/interview quiz The interview embarked on seven questions collecting interviewee’s background information (e.g. Why do you decide to become a teacher?), and the following eleven questions were provided in order to reach the further information about what factors lead to the change of teacher’s engagement and what factor(s) burden them the most (e.g. What factors do you think will influence your engagement?). The full contents of interview questions were in Appendix C.. In-depth Interview Procedures Silverman (2013) has stated that the interview is a suitable approach to get necessary and 25.

(36) primary information for research, especially when researchers are interested in how people interact with the world and phenomenon they have confronted. In this study, the researcher attempted to understand what factors influence teachers’ engagement and how they interact with these factors. Therefore, the interview was adopted to get necessary and sharp information. The semi-structured interview was chosen as the strategy for data collection. In order to keep the data consistent, the researcher provided the interview guide with the same basic questions to each interviewee. During the interview, the interviewee was free to ask or explore questions to give detailed description toward topics and questions within the interview guide (Patton, 2002). Moreover, the researcher was able to ask further question corresponsive to interviewee’s answer. This strategy facilitated the researcher to obtain the information which is needed and in detail. There were two ways for the researcher to reach potential participants. One was to reach acquaintance. Because the researcher was graduated from Applied English Department from a vocational high school located in Taichung. The researcher contacted teachers from my graduated school to reach potential participants. The other one was to reach those participants who were totally strangers to the researcher. The first step started at listing out public vocational high school in Taiwan which included the department of Applied English through the website of government. With the list of potential schools, the researcher called the head of department of each public vocational high school in order to get information about whether there were possible participants. Afterward, the researcher reached information-rich participants. Secondly, participants answered they were willing to join the research, accept the interview through phone or e-mail requested. After obtaining the acceptance, the researcher sent cover letter and interview questions, and started to schedule interview time with interviewees. Scheduling for interview time was quite an obstacle since participants preferred. 26.

(37) to have interview face to face, worked in different counties, and they had classes. Last, transcriptions were typed based on the record of each interviews, and then the researcher sent transcriptions back to interviewees through e-mail in order to have them do the double check on the items.. Data Coding and Analysis During the interview, the researcher used digital voice recorder to record, took notes, and analyzed simultaneously. Later, all the records were transcribed into verbatim, which was reviewed by the interviewee and compared with notes taken during the interview for figuring out important clue behind lines. Data analysis procedures include namely data coding and data analysis two steps.. Coding The content of the interviews were transcribed into verbatim and then scrutinized and filtered out consequential conceptions and concepts that were be able to answer research questions. The junior English teachers in public vocational high school were categorized as A, while those more experienced teachers were noted as B. Questions within the interview were separated into two categories; for example, questions about background-related was group a, and questions about research question was group b. According the transcription, the answer from the interviewee would be number as 01, 02… so that the researcher could induct into a discussion point to highlight the issues raised with regards to the various questions they study is trying to address. The following Table 3.2 is the example of the coding process was presented. The first code identified the teacher is a junior or an experienced English teacher, the second code represented the question number of main question or background question, and the last code referred to the sequence of sentences.. 27.

(38) Table 3.2 The Example of Coding Process Interviewee. Charlotte. Original Data. Coding. I want to help students to understand how to learn English or to find their dreams. I want to help them not to be afraid of English, and understand how to find their own way.. A02_b01_01 I want to help them not to be afraid of English, and understand how to find their own way.. Figure 3.2 showed the categorizing process. After all the verbatim were developed, the researcher adopted opening coding as the first step in the data analysis. The first result of the data were divided into different categories, forming the categorization. This categorization was further put into themes based on analytical coding. Themes were named and then classified into dimensions. The researcher finalized the findings based on research questions. Code. Category. Theme. A01_b02_11 Students’ participation will influence (my engagement) because I like to ask them questions. And if they give me feedback it would become my motivation to work forward. B06_b02_01 The main factor is students’ feedbacks and corresponds during the class. And their comments on you after the class. The feedback is not on material but the interaction between teacher and students. B03_b02_03 Students make me more engaged since they showed their strong motivation to learning. B01_b02_02 Workload and students’ learning motivation influenced my engagement. It does not matter whether their ability is good or not, what matters is their attitude toward learning.. Students’ involvement in class. Student. Dimension Organizational Factor. Students’ learning motivation. Figure 3.2. The figure of categorizing process.. Data Analysis Since the researcher was a student in the department of Applied English, there were fewer gaps or misunderstandings during the interview. With basic understanding about the department, the. 28.

(39) data analysis was done mostly on the transcription and translation the content of the in-depth interviews and then moved onto the categorization of the findings. The researcher adopted data analysis spiral of Creswell (2012) as shown in Figure 3.2 to analyze data. The descriptions of these five steps are as follows: 1.. Organizing the data. The researcher organized the collected data from in-depth interview. Each interview were recorded by the digital voice recorder. Besides, the collected data were organized by title, source, and page number. 2.. Reading and taking notes. The researcher reviewed the transcript and the collected data repeatedly. Meanwhile, the researcher recorded thoughts that swim into her mind when reading. Each note was helpful resources when conducting the steps of coding. 3.. Describing. The researcher built detailed description based on all the collected data from transcript. 4.. Classifying. This step were conducted when the information of this research reach to a saturated condition. Collected data was categorized by different themes. 5.. Interpreting data into codes and themes. Themes were shifted, categorized, and finalized into findings so that the researcher was able to response to the research questions of this research.. 29.

(40) Organizing the Data. Reading and Taking Notes. Describing. Classifying. Interpreting Data into Codes and Themes. Figure 3.3. The process of data analysis.. Validity and Reliability The trustworthiness of research procedures and findings should be evaluated since it represents the worth of the research. According to Patton (2002), validity and reliability are two factors which researchers should be concerned about. The following paragraph will explain the approaches which will be adopted to enhance the quality of this study.. Validity Validity, or term abound to this idea such as credibility, referred to the consistency of collected data and analyzed data to ensure the study measuring what has been intended in the study (Shenton, 2004). The researcher continually had discussion with advisor and peers on data collection, data interpretation, and data analysis. Plenty of research strategies could be adopted to enhance credibility. In this study, the researcher used member check and peer examination to provide evidence of the validity of the research. According to Mertens (2005), “member check was the most important criterion in establishing credibility” (p.255). After the researcher finished the transcript of the interview, the interviewees were kindly asked for helping check interview verbatim to see whether there. 30.

(41) was any mistake or misunderstanding. The other technique to reinforce the validity was peer examination. The researcher explained what themes were in the study to the colleagues, and then they were asked to highlight what they think were related to themes. One of the colleague graduated from engineering department with working experience in patent-related industry. The colleague was responsible for writing document for applying patent, which meant he owned higher sensibility toward word usage. Another colleague was a student who major in Applied English Department now in the University of Technology. The researcher double checked whether there was gap between the researcher and colleagues and it showed that in this study the consistency was 83%, which referred that readers and the researcher reached consensus among the interpretations of collected data. Transferability meant to what extent the result of qualitative research can be transferred to other contexts or settings. To strengthen transferability of the study; for example, the researcher recorded each interview and provided the detail information of data analysis. The records were recorded by the digital recorder and the researcher also took notes during the interview. And, the researcher provided sufficient information derived from records, discussions and analyses by all means.. Reliability Reliability referred to the consistency of the findings under the similar condition. The researcher recorded each interview and provided the detail information of data analysis. The records were recorded by the digital recorder and the researcher also took notes during the interview. And, the researcher provided sufficient information derived from records, discussions and analyses by all means. However, due to the situational uniqueness of the qualitative research, the conclusion of the study cannot be transferred. Thus, the researcher explained the changing contexts regarding the study thoroughly in the section of “research 31.

(42) procedure” to prove that this research was carried out in a systematic way.. Research Procedures As shown in Figure 3.3, the research procedures of this study comprised of nine steps. Some of steps would have been developed persistently or repeatedly throughout the study. 1. Identified research topic When the researcher reviewed the current published paper on Human Resource Development Quarterly (HRDQ), one of the hottest issues in Taiwan was about education. It popped out that the researcher could also focus on English teachers since the researcher was majored in English both in high school and university. In such a coincidence, the research topic was identified. 2. Reviewed literature Once the research topic was established, the review of literature focused on engagementrelated aspects, including the empirical study on employees or teachers, theories, and overview of the concept. Through the process of literature review, the researcher defined the research purposed and questions. 3. Decided research approach The qualitative approach was selected based on the research purpose and questions which were intent to get in-depth thought and understanding of work engagement of new English teachers. Further, the research framework was built up with the linkage between concepts of literature review and research purpose and questions. 4. Decided research participants After determining the sampling population, the research chose and made the phone to invite potential participants who met the sampling criterion of the study. Further information about participant criterion was thoroughly described in the section “sampling”. 5. Designed research questions 32.

(43) At the beginning, the researcher reviewed the questions of UWES and then discussed with the advisor. And, modified questions based on research purposed. More information related to research questions design was in the section of “instrument development”. 6. Performed pilot study Since at first the targeted participants were new-incoming English teachers, the researcher asked one of new English teachers to help check the interview questions. Also, the researcher had a discussion with the advisor to revise interview questions. The final version of interview questions were determined and used during the interview. 7. Conducted interviews Beforehand, the researcher sent both interview outline and cover letter for the participants so that they could have more understanding about the study and could prepare in advance. Then, the researcher prepared paper and recorder to start the interview. 8. Collected and analyzed data Data collection was conducted through interviews and document analysis, followed by the procedure of data analysis. 9. Concluded research findings Through analyzing the collected data, findings and results of the research were consolidated.. 33.

(44) Identified Research Topic Reviewed Literature Decided Research Approach Decided Research Participants Designed Interview Questions Performed Pilot Study Conducted Interviews Collected and Analyzed Data Concluded Research Findings. Figure 3.4. Research procedures flowchart.. 34.

(45) CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS The research participants consists of English teachers in public vocational high school in Taiwan. They are either junior or experienced English teachers, and they served in different public vocational high school in Taiwan. The composition of the research participants played as a tool for gathering data from different division in Taiwan. For the sack of analysis of the data, the researcher organized findings in order to answer two research questions stated in chapter I based on data analysis and then came up with some issues for discussions.. Factors of Teachers’ Engagement Engagement would be influenced by factors surrounded including job resources, personal factors, and others such as student behavior (Adekola, 2010). The researcher grouped three main categories of factors that influence teachers’ engagement: (1) individual factors, (2) organizational factors, and (3) overall situation as Figure 4.1 showed below.. Individual Factors • Motivation for Career • Personality • Family. Organizational Factors • Student • Job Demands • Job Resources. Overall Situation • Policy. Figure 4.1. List of factors affecting teachers’ engagement.. Individual Factors It was believed that constructs and conditions applied by individuals were fundamental to the development of work engagement (Wollard & Shuck, 2011). The following factors: (1) motivation for career, (2) personality, and (3) family were discussed. Motivation for career According to Adekola (2010), motivation for career included extrinsic, intrinsic and 35.

(46) altruistic motives. In this study, among three motives above, altruistic motives had more impacts on teachers’ engagement. Participants held the beliefs that they want to help students, who have difficulty in learning English, to know how to adopt English as a tool rather than being afraid of English. Tangible rewards were the thing they never asked for, what they expect was merely the feedback from students. There were two kinds of feedback: (1) direct feedback and (2) indirect feedback. The interaction during the class was immediate feedback teachers would receive, which helped them to modify the way they teach and observed students’ learning situation. The indirect feedback referred to such as sharing from graduated students or having a talk with graduated students. As Kayla said, You will feel what you devote is more than what you receive when you are teaching students. Nevertheless, when those graduated students come back and share their life with you and tell you that what you have said change their value. At that time, you will a kind of feeling that everything is worthwhile (B06_b10_01). Elle also raised similar viewpoint where she said, Although feedbacks from students are important during the class, yet I did not expect for anything for reciprocation. You will not expect students to enter good university because that is their own decisions. But when graduated students, like you, come back, I am very happy. Or just hear that you have good work. That’s enough (B02_b10_01). Both direct and indirect feedbacks are intangible, but with influential effect on teachers’ engagement, and become the motivation for teachers to moving forward. Teachers devoted themselves to teaching and regarded it as their responsibility and duty. Being a teacher, it fulfilled their career expectations to help others. As Fannie stated, It somehow reach (my expectation) since my intention is to affect others. Indeed, when. 36.

(47) graduated students mentioned that what you have said or done triggered their thinking. These influences includes merely their English competence but their direction toward learning (B03_b09_01). And Greta mentioned “When you notices students have learned from your English classes or they did not think English is as difficult as they have regarded before and progressed. This is what I expected at the very beginning of career path, so it reaches my expectation (A04_b09_01).” As well as Lucia said, I love teaching and I like people. Teaching is the job that fulfill my needs. The reason why I love teaching is that students are the most potential groups because when you guide them and give them direction, they will become better and better. Since they are still learning (A06_b01_02). Fulfilled intrinsic motivation also enhanced teachers’ engagement that teachers looked upon their career with extraordinary meanings toward the society. The meaningfulness of teaching was immeasurable, yet it built the root of country and future talents. Extrinsic motivation meant to salary, pension and psychological benefits. Most of participants themselves put less emphasis on financial issue; instead, their parents regard it as important criteria when choosing a job. Details were discussed in “Family” section. Personality Teachers, themselves influenced their engagement because their beliefs and values toward their career as educators. Although the research did not have participants do the personality test, their talking and their expression had delivered their passion. Through the interviews, the researcher found that most of participants were full of passion to their work that they regard teaching English as a way to share their knowledge with students; meanwhile, they learned from students and 37.

(48) improved their own English competency in order to explore new activities to help students learning during games, videos, or any other designed workshops. One participant said that “when learning a language, you have to amuse yourself before you can amuse others (B04_b05_01).” It expressed how teachers indulged in their work wholeheartedly. Besides, participants ask for nothing tangible for return. Merely, they would felt glad if their students have progress in their English. As Elle stated, You will not expect them to get to better university because it is their own choice. But they have to come to supplementary course if needed since I will expect their improvement in English (B02_b10_02). Same idea as Melissa said, Students know what you have done for them, and they will be willing to memorize the vocabulary. You give and they will respond to you (A07_b10_01). Participants hold positive way of thinking and believe in their career values, which strengthened their work engagement in teaching. Family Kong (2009) stated teachers with different marital status varied their engagement; for example, according to his analysis unmarried teachers were more engaged than those married. In this study, the researcher supposed that family influence the degree of engagement among teachers. Married teachers took their husband, wife, or children into account when it comes to the balance of career and life. Most of time, they tend to leave school on time in order to take children home and prepare dinner for the family. As Lucia stated, Because I have kid, I will finish my work efficiently at school unless there is an accidental situation. It happens often when I am a home-room teacher; otherwise, I will finish my. 38.

(49) work and focus on my children when I am back to home (A06_b08_01). One participant even said that “my husband did not want to put too much effort on students when I was out of duty (A03_b07_02).” It signaled out dilemma married teachers would meet between the balance of family and students, especially the home-room teacher. In fact, family played an important role not only in the variation of engagement, but also in determination of taking teaching as a career. For example, Haley said, I am dreamed to be a teacher so I took the educational courses in the university. But I have thought to be a tour guide or flight attendant since I am good at English. However, my parents are more conservative so that they did not think those two jobs are stable. So, being a teacher somehow is to reach their expectations (A05_b01_02). Or, some chose to become a teacher because one or both of their parents were teachers, which led them to get familiar with the life and career path of teacher. Family exercised influence over the individual either in choosing career or in variation of engagement. It was a stereotype that people regard teaching as a stable career with sufficient income especially suitable for females. Career was a long-term or life-long issue, selfdetermination reinforced the motivation; otherwise, teaching was merely a task there was no expectations for things more over than just teaching. Although teachers were not thoroughly responsible for students’ accomplishment, they influenced their attitude, and their value.. Organizational Factors Within school, there were people, equipment, and policy involved. These were correlated to the variation of teachers’ engagement. And, according to the analysis, the researcher categorized into three groups: (1) student, (2) job demands, and (3) job resources, which were discussed in details in the following paragraphs.. 39.

(50) Student Teachers met different students every year and they had to adjust their teaching methods based on new students in. Therefore, student was possible to be important factor toward teachers’ engagement as former researchers indicated that disruptive pupil behaviors caused teachers to be stressful (Hakanen et al., 2006). In this category, the researcher discussed including teacher-student relationship, students’ behavior both during the class and after the class, and students’ English competency. Teacher-student relationship. In the 21th century, students preferred being friends with teachers to being followers after teachers. As Elle mentioned, Students could not accept you talk to them as supervisors, they rejected the top-down relationship. They tended to be friends with teachers. However, being friends brought pros and cons. It shortened the distance between students and teachers, but it also loosened their disciplines toward teacher (B02_b05_04). Most of participants get along with their students as friends after classes, and more strict when teaching. From viewpoints of Jocelyn, “The courses could be interesting but I would not regard students as friends during the classes; instead, they still needed to follow the rules (B05_b05_01).” Although students were main role at school, they were meant to learn knowledge and cultivate their attitude from teachers. Therefore, teachers were navigators lead them explore knowledge within the universal, understand rules in the world, and consider what they want to be in the future. On the other hand, the changed relationship influenced some teachers for feeling not receive respects; nevertheless, it made waves in teachers’ emotion but not their attitude toward teaching.. 40.

(51) Students’ behaviors. The interaction or feedback during the class influenced the engagement of teacher. Most of teacher did not feel angry; instead, they would introspect themselves first and then they would attempt to find out the solutions in order to help students concentrated during the classes rather than scolding student. As Charlotte mentioned, You will feel frustrated why they do not have any feedback though you have already put a lot of effort in preparation, especially I just here. I overestimated their maturity, their competency and their age. This made me frustrated but I will change my teaching and think what they need actually (A02_b02_01). Aside from feedback, other behavior such as falling a sleep during the classes influenced teachers. Diana cared about students’ behaviors that she would mind if students slept during the classes. Same as Elle mentioned, “I cannot stay that students sleep during the classes. It impacts me a lot on my teaching. If only a few students, I would wake them up (B02_b02_04). The interaction was two-sided that students were more active when the course was interesting. On the other hand, teachers were motivated by feedback from students, which encouraged teachers to come up with activities. If not put an eye on the change between teachers and students, the interaction will become vicious circle. Often, teachers would ask students’ questions or sometimes give the stage to students to understand their learning condition and to activate the classes. Teachers tried more ways to trigger their interests because students now were not able to concentrate for long time when comparing with students in 4-5 years ago. When students lacked concentration, it would influence students’ learning and teachers’ teaching. Bringing about new teaching skills and methods become an issue for teachers and the education in Taiwan. The future study may focus on solving the interaction obstacles between teachers and students in order to enhance both teachers’ engagement and students’ engagement. 41.