A Study of the Effects of Educational and Administrative-Organizational Factors on the Students ’ Work Commitment

Work commitment in the organizations is a factor which leads to the development of discipline, sense of duty, morality, and improvement of human relationships at work. The existence of ethics in the organization, having commitment to the tasks and playing professional roles and behaviors in the best way and with no external control, cause inner peace and satisfaction. High level of work commitment in an organization will guarantee a rise in the productivity, the realization of sustainable development, the evolution of human cultural, the management stability, the economic order and the achievement of short-term and long-term goals of the organization. Several factors affect www.ccsenet.org/hes Higher Education Studies Vol. 2, No. 1; March 2012 ISSN 1925-4741 E-ISSN 1925-475X 46 the various aspects of work commitment. This study aims to investigate the impact and the role of educational and administrative-organizational factors on the students’ work commitment. The study is descriptive-correlational. The sample included 800 students of public universities in Isfahan, including University of Technology, University of Medical Sciences and the University of Isfahan who were selected using a sampling method proportional to size (438 girls and 362 boys). The research tool was the researcher-made questionnaire containing 30 questions in two educational and administrative-organizational aspects. The results of the questionnaire were analyzed using multivariate correlation coefficient (regression) method. The results showed that academic and administrative-organizational factors respectively affect the students’ work commitment (P< 0.05).


Introduction
As a socio-psychological phenomenon, work commitment is one of the factors which highly affect the sociocultural development observing which, by the people of a society is one of the concerns of the developing countries (Dadgaran, 2005).When a society has managed to regard work as a mission rather than a duty, it will achieve all its goals easily.
In addition, in our society which is based on religious sovereignty, one of the most essential aspects of Islamic education is to work and to have work spirit and work commitment.Thus, paying attention to the value and importance of work and activity is one of the aspects of education in Islam which should be seriously considered.Work commitment and striving for material progress, welfare and production are of the main goals which are emphasized in Islamic school.This goal will not be achieved except in the light of education.Work commitment is a type of training which aims to modify the staff's behavior and attitudes towards improving the quality of their productivity (Abtahi, 1995).
Work commitment training starts from the family.The family exposes the person to various stimuli and shapes his/her work commitment through its support and control over the individual (Gupta, & Tyagi, 2009).This support and control lead to the accurate and disciplined supervision of the society or the organization.Afjeh (1997) concluded from his study that the family training and the children's primary education as well as encouraging people's religious beliefs and correct evaluation of their work is outstanding and effective in the formation of work commitment.
In addition to the educations available in the family, administrative-organizational factors as well training them have an undeniable role in creation of work commitment.According to Bennet and Durkin (2000); Van Vianen, De Pater, & Dijk (2007) and Lemons and Jones (2001), consideration of work commitment should be the first priority in any organization in order to increase its productivity.
According to Blau (1998) academic education affects work commitment, while according to Mansoer and Oei (1999), academic education alone is not a good predicator of work commitment.That is because men and women shape their own work commitment due to the society's expectations from them and their academic education determines only their level of work and their organizational position.According to Trombetta & Rogers (1988), education through reading career journals, how the managers deicide, policies adopted by them, authority and rules for supervision and control of personnel, organizing the staff as well as the specialized nature of a career effect work commitment.Thus, since educational and administrative-organizational factors in an organization affect work commitment interactively (Singh, Gupta, & Venugopal, 2008;Karatepe, Uludag, Menevis, Hadzimehmedagic, & Baddar, 2006) the organization is obligated to identify the existing variables and justify the relationship between job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job stress and work commitment (Lambert, 2005).
Moreover, the organization is obligated to meet some factors such as need for improvement, self-confidence mechanisms, the proportion between individuals and their job, and finally, fulfillment of the expectations the individual have from what he is doing, which affects the employees' organizational commitment (Chung, 2002;Betz, Klein, & Tylor, 1996;Betz & Voyten, 1997;Colbert & Kwon, 2000;Lambert, 2004).According to these studies, the more satisfied is the individual with their work, the higher their level of presence at work and their motivation will be.In this regard, McKenna (2005) believes that work commitment has an inverse relationship with the staff's absence working hours.Reduction of absenteeism and inefficient occupational behaviors, quitting work (Rikletta, 2002), improvement of efforts and work assiduity and increase of the job performance (Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnvtsky, 2002) are all caused by people's work commitment.
Therefore, since the development of every society is indebted to the skilled and experienced manpower who have work commitment.The present study intended to answer two major questions: 1-How much do the educational factors affect work commitment?2-How much do the administrative-organizational factors affect work commitment?

Methods
The descriptive (correlation) design was used in this study.The community of the study includes all undergraduate students at the public universities of Isfahan, including 23 140 students (12 874 girls and 10 256 boys) from among which a total number of 800 students (438 girls and 362 boys) were selected randomly.Subjects were to complete researchers , made quessionnaire containing 30 questions.The questionnaire was designed according to the Likert scale and the participants determined their success at each item by selecting one of the options (very high, high, medium, low and very low).Selecting the items very high was scored 5 and the items very low was scored 1.The reliability of the questionnaire was estimated using Cronbach's alpha 09.The results of the questionnaire were analyzed using multivariate correlation coefficient (regression) method.

Results
The results of data analysis in relation to the effects of educational factors on work ethic are presented in Table 1.
As can be seen in Table 1, the highest average (4.27) belongs to "Priority of interest and talent in choosing the field of study and job" and the lowest average belongs to "continuous evaluation of school curricula" factors.
The outputs obtained from the analysis of data in relation to the effects of administrative-organizational factors on work ethic are presented in Table 2.
As seen in Table 2, within administrative-organizational factors which are influencing work ethic, the highest average (4.33) belongs to "having supportive tools and job security like life insurance, pension, job severity, and workplace safety," and the lowest average (4.10) belongs to "accuracy in evaluation of staff." To study the relationship between the grades students earn from educational and administrative-organizational factors and their effects on work ethics, stepwise regression correlation coefficient method was applied.In stepwise method, the independent variable which has the highest correlation with dependant variable is included into the equation and then the same is done to the next variable with the highest correlation.If the meaningfulness probability of one of these variables exceeds 10%, it will be excluded from the equation, and replaced with the next variable.The outcomes of this analysis are presented in Table 3.
As seen in Table 3, the variable which has the highest correlation with work ethic and is first included in the equation is educational factors.The influence of educational factors on work ethic is meaningful.In the mentioned table, single variable correlation coefficient R 2 =0.71.It means that educational factors determine 71% of total score of work ethic implicating that 71% of variance and/or students' differences in terms of work ethic relates to their differences in educational factors.At second step, the next variable with the highest correlation with work ethic is administrative-organizational factors.In Table 4 it is seen that the meaningfulness of regression coefficient implicates that educational and administrative-organizational factors predict the work ethic meaningfully (P=0.000).As seen in above table, by adding administrative-organizational factors to educational factors, the correlation and the square of correlation coefficient increase to R=0.91 and R 2 =0.83 respectively.It means that educational and administrative-organizational factors earn 83% of total score in work ethic.In other words, 83% of variance or students' differences in work ethic relates to their differences in educational and administrative-organizational factors.

Discussion
The results obtained from data analysis showed that the first factor which affects the work commitment of the students is the educational factor.The outcomes of the study are in accordance with of the studies done by Gupta, & Tyagi, (2009), Trombetta & Rogers (1988), and Afje (1997).During the first six years the children are growing under the virtues modeled by families' training and parenting behaviors, and are emulating and internalizing parental values.Then, they enter the formal educational system such as school and university.The teacher, counselor, instructor, and the coach's behaviors are the best behavioral patterns for the students by creating feeling of attachment in them.Encouraging people to study, relying on understanding and analytical capability of the students, changing universities and schools status from their mere educational to educational-research centers, gaining work experience while studying, selecting the field of study in accordance with the interest and talent of students, and the contents of textbooks are of the variables that influence the way the work commitment is shaped.On the other hand, this study depicted that having interest, motivation, and attachment towards the field of study, future career, and the work an individual does are significantly affecting work commitment.If the people are self-motivated by their interest and willingness to work, they will play a part in achieving organization's objectives and will commit extra-role performance behaviors, based on their own ethical standards.These behaviors help the organization's objectives to be achieved.
The second factor influencing work commitment, according to this research, is administrative-organizational elements which complies with the results of studies done by Trombetta & Rogers (1988), Blau (1998), Mansoer and Oei (1999), Chung (2002), and Colbert and Kwon (2000).The discipline governing the organization is considered as the outcome of work commitment of each individual in that organization and is affected by commitment, responsibility, sense of belonging, and involvement.Continuing training and education plan, satisfying the desire for progress, individual's capabilities compliance with job, and meeting the expectation a person has for what he/she does are of the tasks an organization undertakes so as to enhance work commitment of the employees.Moreover, the availability of supportive tools which guarantees the individual's job security, personal development and growth on the basis of individual's competencies, involvement in decision making, promotion opportunity, and satisfaction can increase the level of work commitment (kuvaas, 2003).

Conclusion
In conclusion, by considering the sensitive role of work commitment in achieving personal comfort and social growth, families are recommended to include commitment and accountability in their parenting plan from beginning, and expose children to appropriate training.In addition, the organizations should take their work force and their needs into consideration, since the administrative-organizational factors as well as the role the organization's performance plays in shaping and creating work commitment are so significant in the way the employees perform at work.Continuous evaluation of school curricula 3.9 The highest average (4.27) belongs to "Priority of interest and talent in choosing the field of study and job" and the lowest average belongs to "continuous evaluation of school curricula" factors.

Table 1 .
The average of some items related to educational factors