The Relationship between Teachers ’ Occupational Professionalism and Organizational Alienation

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between occupational professionalism and organizational alienation levels of teachers. The study is designed as a survey model. The sample of the study consists of 303 teachers working in the Mugla province of Turkey. Participants were selected by using the disproportionate cluster sampling technique. Data was collected through the application of the Teachers’ Occupational Professionalism Scale and the Work Alienation Scale. Descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and correlation analyses were used to analyze the data. Based on the findings, the participant teachers’ level of occupational professionalism is high. Among the occupational professionalism dimensions, teachers consider they have professional awareness the most. This is followed by emotional labor, contribution to organization, and personal development. Teachers’ occupational professionalism differ according to gender and school type variables, while it does not differ according to seniority and time in service at the current school. The participant teachers’ organizational alienation is low. Among the alienation dimensions, teachers consider alienating the school the most, even if its level is low. This is followed respectively by powerlessness, isolation and meaninglessness dimensions. Teachers’ organizational alienation differs according to gender, school type, seniority and time in service at the current school variables. There are significant relationships between alienation and occupational professionalism levels of teachers.


Introduction
Human beings have been living together in order to sustain life easier and to achieve objectives since the beginning of their existence.Although humans have been living together, their psychological and social needs have increased day by day, and then their interests and needs began to change.Besides these changes in individuals' lives, organizational and working life in general has also changed as a result of the fact that organizational structure has been getting more and more complicated, the nature of jobs has been steadily changing, and the rapid development of technology.The individuals who struggle to attune to these changes have become negatively affected by this situation, especially from the perspective of psychology.In accordance with this, one of the concepts having emerged in organizational behavior literature is alienation.
The factors giving rise to alienation and the various comments associated with the appearance of it make it difficult to define the term alienation.According to Vallas (1987), the reason why it is difficult to define the term alienation is because of the term itself.In his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx defines alienation as individuals' separating from the product they produce, and from the process the product is formed (Shantz, Alfes, & Truss, 2014).In addition, Marx and Weber clarify alienation as the feeling or the situation of a job's separating from the individual, and state that it stems from the deficiency of autonomy at work (Sarros, Tanewski, Winter, Santora, & Densten, 2002).Moreover, according to Fromm (1992), alienation is individual's accepting themselves as passive and receptive, and exhibiting their behaviors accordingly.Besides, Weisskopf (1996) defines it as individual's realizing their pre-selected potential only, and the obligation of giving away their other potentials which are within the borders of their personality.Based upon these definitions of alienation, it is possible to depict it as a negative, multidimensional and emotional structure generated through the intervention of external factors between individuals and the products or services they create.
In the literature, there are various sub-dimensions of alienation.Seeman (1959) identifies alienation in five sub-dimensions.These are powerlessness which means external factors are much more prevalent in individuals' behaviors, meaninglessness which shows up as a result of the conflict between individuals' own truths and societal truths, normlessness which occurs when individuals can not reveal their own value judgement, isolation which signifies the situation of receding from the people in the near environment, and selfestrangement which emerges as a result of individuals' not internalizing their own behaviors.However, Feuer (1963) takes a different tack in terms of the dimensions of alienation and suggests it in six sub-dimensions.These are the alienation of class society, the alienation of competitive society, the alienation of industrial society, the alienation of human society, the alienation of race and the alienation of generation.In addition, Kohn (1976) approaches alienation as powerlessness, normlessness, self-isolation and cultural isolation.Notwithstanding, Seeman's dimensions of alienation has been preferred frequently as its structure is much more appropriate for empirical studies (Hoy, 1972).
In the literature, there have been various views on the occurrence of alienation.Technology's entrance into organizational life, increasing mechanization and mechanical daily life give rise to employees not being able to express themselves.Thereupon, employees hold society responsible for this, develop a point of view towards society, EDUPIJ / VOLUME 4 / ISSUE 1-2 / SPRING-SUMMER~FALL-WINTER / 2015 accordingly, and begin alienating (Kanungo, 1990).In addition, that people intuit an increasing division between their existence as an individual and citizen, and start to perceive these roles as conflicted parties of life causes alienation, anew.(Pappenheim, 2002).In terms of societal point of view, Tönnies (1957( , as cited in Pappenheim, 2002) ) states that the people in the society proceed to a new age that they have grasped they will not be able to pursue their private benefits effectively and they have had their relations based on a contract; which causes alienation from the society.
Like any other profession which is intense in terms of human relations and under societal, political and economic pressure, the teaching profession is also one of the occupations which are open to feelings of alienation.The expectations, interventions and many applications and enforcements related to the educational system can lead teachers to become alienated from their jobs.Elma (2003) states that facts like educational legislations and regulations' restricting teachers' intellectual and acting freedom; teachers' efforts' not being appreciated; limited educational opportunities, and successful teachers' not coming to someone's attention cause teachers to become alienated from their occupations.Besides, Simsek (1997) points out that the centrally-organized Turkish educational system allows teachers to teach by only the books and programs pre-selected by the center, which transform them into passive-implementers.Such situations might be asserted as the reasons for the alienation of teachers who take important roles and responsibilities in educational system.
Besides these alienation related factors, one of the variables which might be associated with employees' alienation is occupational professionalism.From past to present, organizations have been continually expanding and organizational life has become more complicated as a result.This situation has caused a knock-on effect whereby employees' expectations have also increased, and continue to do so.Within this framework, organizations have started to focus on assimilating more professional people into their workforce.Along with these expectations and desires, the attitude towards teaching profession, as in other professions, has also seen changes with each passing day, with an emphasis on increased professionalism.
The term professional is defined as "a person who is doing a job in order to generate an income" (TDK, 2014).Even if this definition might be valid for many professions, it does not seem possible to clarify teacher professionalism based only on this definition as it requires significant self-devotion, strong intrinsic values and staunch emotional labor.At this point, it would be more beneficial to consider teacher professionalism according to definitions of the term professionalism as seen in the literature.
Professionalism is defined as fulfilling a job in the most precise and meticulous manner, with the least amount of mistakes.At the same time, endeavoring to attain betterment, exhibiting originality through continuous improvement, grasping even the smallest details of the job, and working beyond expectations by recognizing the key elements have been stated as indicators of professionalism (Adiguzel, Tanriverdi, & Sonmez-Ozkan, 2011).Within this framework, it is possible to describe professionalism as a whole containing individuals' attentive and self-devoted behaviors for the purpose of reaching the required standards.As to the term occupational professionalism, in addition to the definitions of professionalism, it is possible to define it as a member of some specific communities where information and experiences are shared jointly (Dinger, Stepina, Thatcher, Breland, & Treadway, 2015).Besides, Freidson (2001) talks about occupational professionalism as being a competent in terms of the required information and skills for doing a job.
Based on all these definitions of professionalism, the question "What feelings and behaviors must teachers exhibit to be described as a professional?"comes to mind.For this reason, it is possible to express the classification 'professional teachers' as individuals endeavoring to succeed in the teaching profession, and who are self-devoted, unique, aware of their pedagogic roles, have the required field knowledge, skills and competence, and generate a reasonable income while practicing their profession.
As in other professions, the meaning attributed to the teaching profession and the responsibilities required for this profession increases every day.Today, many organizations require professional individuals in order to expand, develop faster and survive.However, it is also necessary to keep in mind that occupational professionalism is a desired situation not only for organizations, but also for individuals themselves.Altinkurt and Yilmaz (2014) emphasize what aspects of professionalism make it important for individuals as performance that doesn't happen by chance, individuals' vindicating their rights, the necessity of the job to motivate employees, and employees' feeling satisfied with their jobs.
In literature, there are various sub-dimensions of occupational professionalism.McMahon and Hoy (2009) identify occupational professionalism in four sub-dimensions.These are academic engagement, self-enforcement of standards, effectiveness, and contribution to a professional community.Besides, Altinkurt and Yilmaz (2014) identify occupational professionalism in four sub-dimensions, which are personal development, meaning employees' endeavoring voluntarily for improving themselves; contribution to organization, which refers to employees' using their skills and competences for the sake of the organization; professional awareness which means employees are aware of their responsibilities, being open to change and progress, and emotional labor, which means employees' trying not to reflect their personal emotions in their working life.
There have been various studies in national (Altinkurt & Yilmaz, 2014;Cerit, 2012;Guven, 2010;Uzun, Palic, & Akdeniz, 2013;Yilmaz & Altinkurt, 2014) and international (Bottery, 1997;Bourke, Lidstone, & Ryan, 2013;Flores & Shiroma, 2003;Geist & Hoy, 2004;Noordin, Rashid, Ghani, Aripin, & Darus, 2010;Okas, Schaaf, & Krull, 2014;Pearson & Moomaw, 2005;Talbert & McLaughlin, 1994;Tschannen-Moran, 2009) literature.Altinkurt and Yilmaz (2014) have observed positive, moderate and significant relationships between teachers' occupational professionalism and job satisfaction.Cerit (2012) states that there is a positive and significant relationship between the effective bureaucratic school model and EDUPIJ / VOLUME 4 / ISSUE 1-2 / SPRING-SUMMER~FALL-WINTER / 2015 occupational professionalism.Tschannen-Moran (2009) observed that teachers exhibit higher levels of professionalism in situations where there is organizational trust and where teachers work with administrators in a compatible way.In addition, Pearson and Moomaw (2005) state that the more general teacher autonomy and job satisfaction increases, the higher the professionalism is displayed; and the more job satisfaction, perceived authority usage level and professionalism increase, the more the job stress decreases.However, in the literature, there were no studies found that examine the relationship between teachers' occupational professionalism and organizational alienation.Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between teachers' occupational professionalism and organizational alienation through the following research questions:  What are the levels of teachers' occupational professionalism and organizational alienation? Do teachers' occupational professionalism and organizational alienation significantly differ according to the variables of gender, school type, seniority, and time in service at the current school? Is there a significant relationship between teachers' occupational professionalism and organizational alienation?

Methodology
The research was conducted using the survey model.In accordance with this model, it is aimed to depict the relationship between teachers' occupational professionalism and organizational alienation.
The population of the study consists of 1,204 primary, secondary and high school teachers working in Turkey during the 2014-2015 academic year.The sample size was calculated as 291 for 95% confidence level.In identification of the sample, disproportionate cluster sampling method was employed in order to select the participant teachers.Taking into consideration that there might be a lower return rate or imprecise completion of scales, it was decided to seek responses from 320 teachers.Participants returned 303 valid scales, upon which the analysis was conducted, which is above the minimum sample size (n=291) stated above.59.1% (n=179) of the participants were female and 40.9% (n=124) were male.21.8% (n=66) of the teachers were from primary schools; 33.7% (n=102) from secondary schools; 21.8% (n=66) from high schools and 22.8% (n=69) from vocational high schools.20.1% (n=61) of the teachers were working as primary school teachers, 73.3% (n=222) as subject teachers and 6.6% (n=20) as teachers of vocational subjects.The seniority of the teachers varied greatly, from 1 to 41 years.27.7% (n=84) of the teachers have 10 years or less experience, 38.6% (n=117) between 11-20 years and 33.7% (n=102) have 21 years or more.In addition, the participants' time in service at the current school varies from 1 to 30 years.43.9% (n=133) of the teachers have 3 years or less time in service at the current school, 26.4% (n=80) between 4-6 years, and 29.7% (n=90) have 7 years or more.
In this study, the data was collected through the 'Occupational Professionalism of Teachers Scale (OPTS)' and the 'Teachers' Work Alienation Scale'.Occupational Professionalism of Teachers Scale was developed by Yilmaz and Altinkurt (2014).The scale consists of 24 five-point Likert type items.The scale has four sub-dimensions, namely EDUPIJ / VOLUME 4 / ISSUE 1-2 / SPRING-SUMMER~FALL-WINTER / 2015 personal development, contribution to organization, professional awareness and emotional labor.Variance ratio explained by all four factors is 52.22%.Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed a χ2/sd ratio of 2.66.Other goodness for fit indexes calculated by CFA were: GFI=.82,AGFI=.78,RMSEA=.08,RMR=.05,SRMR=.08,CFI=.80,NFI=.72,NNFI=.77,PGFI=.67.Besides, Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient was examined for testing the reliability of the scale.Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient is .79for personal development factor, .74 for professional awareness, .86 for contribution to organization, .80 for emotional labor and .90 for the total scale.For this study, Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient was calculated as .72 for personal development factor, .83for professional awareness, .84 for contribution to organization, .86 for emotional labor and .91 for the total scale.All items in the scale are scored in the intervals of "1:Strongly Disagree" to "5:Strongly Agree".High scores from the scale show a high level of occupational professionalism of the teachers.
Teachers' Work Alienation Scale was developed by Elma (2003) in order to determine the levels of teachers' work alienation.The scale consists of 38 five-point Likert type items.The scale has four sub-dimensions, namely powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, and alienation from school.Variance ratio explained by all four factors is 42.4%.Besides, Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient was examined for testing the reliability of the scale.Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient is .86for powerlessness factor, .84 for meaninglessness, .80 for isolation and .62 for alienation from school.For this study, Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient was calculated as .89for powerlessness factor, .93 for meaninglessness, .88 for isolation and .70 for alienation from school.All items in the scale are scored in the intervals of "1: Never" to "5: Always".High scores from the scale for powerlessness, meaninglessness and isolation sub-dimensions show high levels of alienation, while high scale scores from the alienation from school sub-dimension shows a low level of alienation.
In this research, descriptive statistics, t-test for dual comparisons and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for comparisons with three or more variables were used in order to determine the teachers' occupational professionalism and level of organizational alienation.For significant F values, Tukey test was used so as to determine the source of significant difference.In addition, Pearson correlation coefficient was used to determine the relationship between teachers' occupational professionalism and organizational alienation.Correlation coefficient as an absolute value ranging from 0.70 to 1.00 was considered as a high correlation, 0.69 to 0.30 as moderate correlation and 0.29 to 0.00 as a low correlation (Buyukozturk, 2009).

Findings
In this section, the findings have been presented by statistically analyzing the data collected.Firstly, the levels of teachers' occupational professionalism and organizational alienation with dual and multiple comparisons according to the variables of gender, school type, seniority and time in service at the current school are revealed.Then, it is aimed to determine to what extent the participant teachers' occupational professionalism and alienation is correlated with each other.
Teachers' views on occupational professionalism total score do not differ significantly according to the variables of seniority [F (2-300) =2.29; p>.05] and time in service at the current school [F (2-300) =.68; p>.05].However, a significant difference has been observed according to gender and school type variables in some sub-dimensions.
There are negative and significant relationships between all dimensions of teachers' occupational professionalism and alienation.There is a negative and low level relationship (r=-.28,p<.01) between teachers' occupational professionalism levels and organizational alienation.Similarly, there are negative and low level relationships between alienation and occupational professionalism's personal development (r=-.14, p<.01), professional awareness (r=-.20,p<.01) and contribution to organization (r=-.23,p<.01) dimensions.Finally, there are negative and moderate level relationships between the alienation and emotional labor (r=-.24,p<.01) dimension.

Conclusion and Discussion
This study aimed to determine the relationship between teachers' occupational professionalism and organizational alienation.Firstly, teachers' occupational professionalism levels were determined.Teachers' occupational professionalism level is high.In the literature, there are limited numbers of study on teachers' occupational professionalism.
EDUPIJ / VOLUME 4 / ISSUE 1-2 / SPRING-SUMMER~FALL-WINTER / 2015 Altinkurt and Yilmaz (2014) and Bayhan (2011) identified teachers' occupational professionalism level as high, while Cerit (2012) and Noordin et al. (2010) identified it as low.In addition, teachers think that they have professional awareness the most among occupational professionalism dimensions.This is followed by emotional labor, contribution to organization and personal development, respectively.Altinkurt and Yilmaz (2014) reached similar findings in their research conducted on pre-school, primary, secondary, and high school teachers.
Teachers' occupational professionalism, according to the gender variable, does not differ in the personal development and contribution to organization dimensions of occupational professionalism, while it differs in the general occupational professionalism, professional awareness, and emotional labor dimensions of occupational professionalism.The differences in all of these dimensions are in favor of female teachers.The occupational professionalism of female teachers is higher than for male teachers.In Bayhan's (2011) research, it was also determined that female teachers' occupational professionalism is higher than male teachers.Nevertheless, the difference was not statistically significant in that research.
Additionally, teachers' occupational professionalism, according to school type variable, does not differ in personal development and professional awareness dimensions of occupational professionalism, while it differs in general occupational professionalism and contribution to organization and emotional labor dimensions of occupational professionalism.This difference is between primary school teachers and secondary and high school teachers in general occupational professionalism.In contribution to organization dimension of occupational professionalism, this difference is between primary school teachers and secondary, high school and vocational high school teachers; and in the emotional labor dimension, between primary school and vocational high school teachers.The occupational professionalism of primary school teachers is higher than for other teachers.In the emotional labor dimension of Yilmaz, Altinkurt, Guner, and Sen's (2015) research, it has also been determined that primary school teachers exhibit emotional labor feeling more than high school teachers.This is a pretty interesting finding, because nearly all of the teachers in Turkey receive a similar education from university faculties.The reason for this finding might be that primary school teachers work in relatively smaller schools, handle with smaller age groups and spend longer time with the same students.This situation might lead to emotional commitment aside from professionalism.However, much deeper qualitative researches need to be conducted on this issue.
Teachers' occupational professionalism does not differ significantly according to the variables of seniority and service time at current school.In the research conducted by Bayhan (2011) andToh, Diong, Boo, andChia (1996), it was determined that teachers' professionalism does not differ according to seniority.Based on these findings, it might be asserted that teachers' professionalism is more related with individual and organizational factors, than with seniority as a variable.
Another purpose of this research has been to identify the level of teachers' organizational alienation.The participant teachers' general organization alienation level is low.Despite its low level, teachers alienate the school the most.This dimension is followed by powerlessness, isolation and meaninglessness, respectively.This finding supports some EDUPIJ / VOLUME 4 / ISSUE 1-2 / SPRING-SUMMER~FALL-WINTER / 2015 other research found in the literature.In Sirin's (2010) research conducted on primary and secondary school, Yildiz et al.'s (2013) on secondary school, and Boz's (2014) research on vocational high school teachers, similar findings have been reached.
Teachers' alienation, according to gender, does not differ in the alienation from school dimension, while it differs significantly in general organizational alienation, and powerlessness, meaninglessness and isolation dimensions of general organization.Male teachers feel powerlessness, meaninglessness and isolation emotions more than female teachers.In the literature, there are some studies (Acikel, 2013;Calisir, 2006;Elma, 2003;Korkmaz, 2014) that state that male teachers feel alienation more than female teachers Despite its low numbers, there are some studies asserting in some dimensions of alienation, that female teachers feel alienation feelings more than male teachers.In Celep's (2008) study on isolation and alienating from school dimensions; Sirin's (2010) on alienating from school dimension, and Kilcik's (2011) research on the powerlessness dimension, it was determined that female participants feel alienation more than male teachers.Teachers' alienation, according to school type variable, does not differ in the isolation dimension, while it differs in general organizational alienation and powerlessness, meaninglessness and alienation from school dimensions of organizational alienation.The difference in the powerlessness dimension is between primary school teachers and high and vocational high school teachers; and also between secondary school teachers and vocational high school teachers.In the meaninglessness dimension, it's between primary school teachers and high and vocational high school teachers; as well as between secondary school teachers and high school teachers.In the alienation from school dimension, the difference is between primary school teachers and secondary, high and vocational high school teachers.Primary and secondary school teachers feel alienation less than the other teachers.Also in Sirin's (2010) research conducted on physical education teachers, teachers work alienation differs according to the school type variable.The physical education teachers at primary schools feel alienation less than physical education teachers at secondary schools (in the powerlessness, meaninglessness and isolation dimensions).A similar finding has emerged in terms of occupational professionalism.Considering these findings, it might be stated that there is an appropriate organizational climate supporting teachers' professionalism and leading to the happiness of teachers at primary schools, rather than other school types.This situation might be associated with warmer informal relationships in these relatively smaller schools.Because, by specifically taking into account Sirin's (2010) research, what takes place differently after teachers graduate from the same university is only the type of school they are appointed to.
According to the seniority variable, teachers' alienation only significantly differs in the alienation from the school dimension.Teachers with 21 years or more seniority feel alienation less than teachers with 11-20 years of seniority.Similarly, teachers with 7 years or more service at their current school feel alienation less than teachers with 4-6 years of seniority.In terms of total seniority, similar findings have been reached in Eryilmaz and Burgaz's (2011) research conducted on high school teachers, and research on primary school teachers by Simsek, Balay, and Simsek (2012), Kesik andComert (2014), andAcikel (2013).Thus, it might be stated that the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) in Turkey should revise the compulsory rotation application oriented for teachers.It is necessary for the MoNE to evaluate the possible outcomes of compulsory rotation application in terms of not EDUPIJ / VOLUME 4 / ISSUE 1-2 / SPRING-SUMMER~FALL-WINTER / 2015 only teachers, but also organizations; and not to put this into practice before conducting comprehensive investigation.
The ultimate purpose of the study is to determine the relationship between teachers' alienation and occupational professionalism.There have been negative and significant relationships between all dimensions of teachers' alienation and of occupational professionalism.There are negative and low level relationships between teachers' alienation and general occupational professionalism.Similarly, there are negative and low level relationships between personal development, professional awareness, contribution to organization dimensions of occupational professionalism and alienation; negative and a moderate level relationship between emotional labor dimension of occupational professionalism and alienation.Based on these findings, the more that teachers feel themselves as being professional in their occupations, the less they feel alienation.At this point, the responsibility should be shouldered not only by the teachers, but also the MoNE and provincial and district national education directorates which supply the necessary equipment and professional development programs for teachers; and by school principals who should motivate and support teachers psychologically and back their participation in professional teacher training programs.Even so, teachers play the most important role in terms of creating opportunities to develop themselves.It is fundamental for teachers to display eagerness and enthusiasm.Therefore, it is possible to state that teachers' level of professionalism is expected to become higher as long as all educational shareholders fulfil their duties and responsibilities, resulting in teachers with less negative feelings such as alienation.