Results
Psychometric properties of the Teacher Achievement Striving Scale (TASS) and the Teacher Occupational Commitment Scale (TOCS)
Teacher Achievement Striving Scale (TASS)
An exploratory factor analysis using maximum likelihood estimation was conducted on the results from the TASS. One factor was extracted based upon examination of the eigenvalues and the scree plot. This factor accounted for 28.83% of the variation, and was labelled ‘teacher-specific achievement striving’. This is a low percentage of variation for a single-factor solution, but with such a limited sample size further validation work could not be conducted. All 10 items loaded on this factor with factor loadings greater than .30. The items with their respective factor loadings are presented in Table 1. Items 1, 2, and 7 were quite weak items with factor loadings below .40, although the remaining items displayed quite good validity with factor loadings from .51 to .69.
Reliability analysis was also carried out using item–total correlations to establish item homogeneity. The 10-item TASS demonstrated adequate internal consistency with Cronbach’s a 1⁄4 :75.
Teacher Occupational Commitment Scale (TOCS)
An exploratory factor analysis using maximum likelihood estimation was conducted on the results from the TOCS. One factor was extracted based upon examination of the eigenvalues and the scree plot. This factor accounted for 38.49% of the variation, and was labelled ‘commitment to the teaching profession’. All six items loaded on this factor