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.