Scale development
New scales were required to measure achievement striving specific to the teaching profession, and occupational commitment. Achievement striving is defined as the ‘tendency to work hard to achieve goals’ (Spector & O’Connell, 1994, p.4), and statements developed represented a high need for achievement within the teaching profession. Items for both of these scales were generated based upon results from a small focus group of psychologists and teachers. Initially, 15 items were created for this scale, but through discussions between the authors of this paper, this was reduced to 10 items.