The Interface between Motivational and Emotional Facets of Organizational Commitment among Instructors at Higher Education

Teachers in higher education domain play a decisive role in advancing economic developments as well as nurturing the well-being of the societies. Thus, the issue of university instructors’ commitment and the factors influencing its development should be a compelling priority for higher education administrations. The present study aims to extend the research on teacher organizational commitment by investigating the contribution of job motivation and emotion regulation to teacher commitment at higher education. To this purpose, 135 English as a foreign language (EFL) instructors from different higher education institutes and universities of Mashhad and Shiraz, two cities in Iran took part in this study. They were requested to complete a battery of three questionnaires: Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ), Work Tasks Motivation Scale for Teachers (WTMST), and Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). Findings demonstrated that both emotion regulation and motivation had a positive significant correlation with teacher organizational commitment. Moreover, findings obtained via regression analysis showed that among job motivation components, identified regulation was the best contributor of teacher organizational commitment. Also, among the subscales of emotion regulation, reappraisal strategy was a better predictor of teacher organizational commitment. Findings are discussed in details with respect to the implications for both theory and practice in higher education.

230 Royaei & Ghanizadeh -Instructors' Organizational Commitment esearch in the domain of leadership literature has revealed that teacher commitment is among the most influential elements in educational achievement (Fink, 1992). The issue of teacher commitment in higher education seems more critical than other educational levels since university instructors not only transmit information but also exert substantial influence on their students' different aspects of life (Ghanizadeh, 2016). In this vein, several points should be taken into account. One could be that in higher education, students' future profession is quite established. They have definite goals and objectives to follow for their professional development. Consequently, university instructors are expected to provide and sustain high quality instruction and learning to warrant training fully-functioning members of the society. Another issue that can highlight the role of university instructors might be their emotional state and its impact on their students' behaviors. Research revealed that the role of emotion is inevitable in individuals' life (VanderVoort, 2006). There is significant evidence that individuals with high emotional competence are more likely to have better social support network and experience less wellbeing problems such as depression and anxiety (VanderVoort, 2006). In harmony with this contention, Ghanizadeh and Royaei (2015) noted that teachers with high level of emotion regulation experience less burn out. Teaching has been proved to be as one of the most stressful professions (Johnson et al., 2005). At university, a professor with high emotional intelligence might be expected to have humanitarian teaching style which flourishes the development of their self-esteem and motivates students to adopt a more active approach to learning (VanderVoort, 2006;Ghanizadeh & Moafian, 2010). Consistent with the role of emotional factors, instructors' motivational disposition has been proved to have substantial effect on their functioning and commitment (Ferneta, Austina & Vallerand, 2012). In the present research, university instructors' motivation, commitment, and emotion regulation are studied within a single framework. In the followings, each of these constructs is concisely reviewed. International and Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences,5(3) 231

Organizational Commitment
Organizational commitment, as defined by Mowday, Steers, and Porter (1979), is "the relative strength of an individual's identification with and involvement in a particular organization" (p. 226). This issue relies on three perspectives: identification referring to individual's acceptance of the organization's goals and values, involvement referring to the willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization, and loyalty referring to the significance related to keeping up the membership in the organization (Bogler & Somech, 2004).
In the educational domain, studies on teacher commitment have been conducted since 1980s (McPherson, Crowson & Pitner, 1986). Research demonstrated that teachers' responses to innovations in educational system signified the emotional side of teacher commitment. Jo (2014) mentioned that studies in the realm of teacher commitment should (a) explore relational as well as emotional dimensions as predictors of teacher commitment, and (b) employ a theoretical framework of the commitment process that respects teachers as cognitive and affective actors rather than "closed-circuit" and "passive recipients". The fundamental aspect of Lazarus' (1991) cognitiveemotional theory is appraisal which refers to evaluation of the importance of occurrences which happen in the person-environment relationships regarding to individual well-being (Jo, 2014). Meyer and Allen (1997) introduced a commitment framework that encompasses three dimensions, namely affective, normative, and continuance organizational commitment (Jaros, 2007). In this model, affective organizational commitment refers to the employee's emotional binds with organization mainly through positive professional experiences. Normative commitment represents those dimensions of commitment that rely on perceived obligation towards the organization, and continuance organizational commitment represents those perspectives of commitment that are derived from the employee's perception of economic and social costs.
By the same token, Meyer, Becker, and Van Dick (2006) offered an integrative model of commitment comprising two sides: cognitive as well as affective constructs; cognitive elements consist of the basics of commitment 232 Royaei & Ghanizadeh -Instructors' Organizational Commitment in terms of factors such as continuing membership and meeting objectives, and affective elements range as a function of the cognitive components. Park (2005) stated that teachers have connection with a host of elements such as teaching profession, co-workers, their learners, professional relationships, and schools. Some integration of a number of these commitments like commitments to organization, profession, and learners are fundamental in increasing teachers' professionalism and following changes in teaching practice. Bogler and Somech (2004) contended that individual professional growth (their own belief that they work in a supportive and nurturing environment contributing to professional enrichment and development) may exert influence on their feeling of commitment to the organization and the career. To extend this concept to teacher education, it appears teachers' degree of perceived available opportunities for their professional development has an effect on their attempts of organizational achievements and career. This implies that teachers' motivation as well as their willingness to develop professionally are influential in their job commitment.

Teacher Motivation
The role of teachers' motivation has substantially been highlighted in the educational domain since the impact that it exerts on various educational dimensions is undeniable. From a theoretical standpoint, teachers' motivation is derived from two social cognitive theories of motivation (Fernet et al., 2012): social learning theory of internal-external locus of control proposed by Rotter in 1966 and self-efficacy theory introduced by Bandura (1997). These two theories focus on the importance of individual's competence beliefs. Self-determination theory stresses the role of choice in the regulation of human behaviors. Within this realm three main kinds of motivation in accordance with different degrees of self-determination have been recognized: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation (Fernet et al, 2012). Individuals with intrinsic motivation tend to perform actions because of the pleasure they find whereas extrinsically motivated people possess instrumental aims and amotivated individuals have lower International and Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences, 5(3) 233 level of self-determination. In fact, they are neither intrinsically nor extrinsically motivated.
Self-determination theory contended that work motivation fluctuates in line with job-related environment. For example, Deci, Connell, and Ryan (1989) proposed when the work atmosphere is autonomy-supportive, motivation rises and within this domain, individuals believe it is their right to make a decision and they feel they are supported in their profession (Fernet et al., 2012). They argued that in such an autonomy-supportive environment that supervisors create, employees enjoy from job functioning and as the result they have more job-satisfaction and are more psychological well-being. They found that there was a positive effect of autonomous motivation on job commitment among 586 school principals in Canada. Grouzet, Vallerand, Thill, and Provencher (2004) reported that individuals with high level of self-determination perceive environmental factors more autonomy supportive than individuals with less level of self-determination. Applying motivational strategies by teachers is a fundamental construct of their professional effectiveness in learners' accomplishments (Bernaus & Gardner, 2008). Teachers' skill is conceived as an important factor in incorporating motivational strategies into instruction as well as curricula for building a motivating learning context (Dὂrnyei, 2001). Maeng and Lee (2015) investigated the motivational strategies employed by in-service EFL teachers in Korea. For this aim, they videotaped teachers' classes and analyzed data based on Keller's (2010) ARCS model (ARCS stands for attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction respectively) via Nvivo approach. They found that teachers employed motivational strategies only in order to increase the learners' attention. Nakata (2006) stated that the association between cognition, emotions, and environmental factors constitute and shape teachers' motivational disposition. MacIntyre (2002) documented that there was a strong relationship between motivation and emotion. Jacques (2001) investigated the relationship between teachers' and learners' motivation and their priorities about instructional tasks. He found that both teachers and learners had some motivational tendencies about their perceptions of strategy application. Bernaus, Wilson, and Gardner (2009) explored the link between teachers' motivation and their application of 234 Royaei & Ghanizadeh -Instructors' Organizational Commitment strategies and learners' motivation and their English language achievement among 31 teachers as well as 691 learners from Spain. They reported that teachers' motivation had a relationship with their use of strategies and had a significant relationship with students' motivation and their strategy application. Bernaus et al (2009) noted that when teachers are motivated, learners find motivation and put ample effort in performing class activities. A growing body of research has been emerged to investigate both teachers' motivating factors for choosing teaching profession and motivating factors that encourage them to persist in the profession (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2005, as cited in Watt et al., 2012). Research revealed that various factors exert influence on teacher motivation such as working with kids and adults, having professional security, making a social contribution, and gaining job satisfaction (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2005, as cited in Watt & Richardson, 2007). Brookhart and Freeman (1992) stated that "altruistic, service-oriented goals and other intrinsic motivations are the source of the primary reasons entering teacher candidates report for why they chose teaching as a career" (p. 46).
Studies on motivation of instructors seem particularly relevant from two perspectives: first, instructors' motivation is viewed as a critical element of professional development, and secondly, instructors' shortage has prompted research on motivations for choosing teaching as a career (Königa & Rothland, 2012).

Emotion Regulation
Hosotani and Imai-Matsumura (2011) pointed out that teachers' different manners of emotional expressions have an impact on their instructional manner, classroom management, and learners' behaviors. A number of factors determine teachers' emotional experience such as personal reality referring to the teacher-self, social relationships such as the nexus between instructor-learner, instructor-instructor, instructor-parents ones, and above them is the influence of cultural context (Trigwell, 2012;Postareff & Lindblom-Ylänne, 2011;Ghanizadeh & Moafian, 2010).

International and Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences, 5(3) 235
In studying teacher-related issues, emotion regulation is conceived important from different perspectives. For example, by regulating emotions teachers think that they can achieve particular aims such as academic, cultural, instructional, and management goals (Sutton, 2004). Harvey and Evans (2003;as cited in Yin, Lee, Zhang & Jin, 2013) proposed a model of teachers' emotional skill instigating from regulation of emotion and containing several factors, including, emotional relationships, interpersonal awareness, emotional intrapersonal beliefs, emotional interpersonal guidelines, and emotional management. Gross (1998) identified five kinds of strategies for regulating emotions in his process-oriented framework (Webster & Hadwin, 2014): (a) situation selection (approaching or avoiding certain individual, places or aims), (b) situation modification (directly altering external perspective of a situation), (c) attentional deployment (refocusing attention on or distracting attention away from certain aspects of a situation), (d) cognitive change (modifying appraisals or evaluation of the situation) and (e) response modulation (directly altering emotional responses to a situation, such as by using drugs, practicing relaxation techniques or suppressing the emotion).

The Current Study
A body of recent research has demonstrated that various factors enhance or diminish teachers' commitment and are important in teachers' lingering in their profession, such as the significance of workplace conditions, teacher emotional states, teachers' sense of responsibility, and teacher incentives (Choi & Tang, 2009). We proposed that such relationships existed because of the conceptual linkage between these constructs.
Accordingly, the aim of the current study is to explore the effects of intra-individual level predictors − emotion regulation and job motivation − that contribute to Iranian university instructors' organizational commitment. Specific attention is also paid to find out which type of emotion regulation strategies and which subscale of motivation predict EFL instructors' commitment. To the researchers' best knowledge, no study to date has been carried out to explore the nexus between teacher organizational commitment, 236 Royaei & Ghanizadeh -Instructors' Organizational Commitment emotion regulation, and job motivation among Iranian EFL teachers. So the following research questions were addressed in the current study: 1-Is there any significant relationship between organizational commitment and emotion regulation among Iranian EFL university instructors'? 2-Is there any significant relationship between organizational commitment and job motivation among Iranian EFL university instructors'? 3-Is there any significant relationship between emotion regulation strategies and job motivation among Iranian EFL university instructors'? 4-Among the components of emotion regulation, which component is a better predictor of teacher organizational commitment? 5-Among the components of job motivation, which component is the best predictor of teacher organizational commitment?

Method Participants
The sample of current study consisted of 135 instructors between the ages of 26 to 48 years. They were selected from different universities and highereducation institutions from Mashhad and Shiraz, two cities in Iran. The average teaching experience was 8 years ranging from 2 to 21 years. 87 participants had M.A. in various majors of English: TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language), translation, and Literature. And the rest had PhD or were PhD candidates in TEFL and linguistics. All the instructors were assured of the confidentiality of their responses and that their responses would only be used for the current study.

Instruments
Job Motivation. The assessment of job motivation among current participants was carried out via the 'Work Tasks Motivation Scale for Teachers (WTMST)' designed by Fernet, Senécal, Guay, Marsh, and Dowson (2008). In this scale, participants were required to respond to the following question "Why are you engaged in the following task?" and rated 15 items which were classified into five three-item subscales: Intrinsic Motivation: the sample item is "Because it is pleasant to carry out this task", Identified Regulation: the example item is "Because I find this task important for the academic success of my students", Introjected Regulation: "Because I would feel guilty not doing it". External Regulation: "Because my work demands it", and Amotivation: "I don't know, I don't always see the relevance of carrying out this task". Items were scored on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (does not correspond at all) to 7 (corresponds completely). In this study, the reliability estimates of the scale and subscales computed via Cronbach's alpha was found to be .76. The reliability of the subscales ranged from .68 to .79.
Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). The participants' emotional regulation was measured via the 'Emotional Regulation Questionnaire' developed by Gross and John (2003). This scale indicates how individuals control and regulate their emotions (Gross & John, 2003). It consists of two main categories of emotion regulation strategies: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Cognitive reappraisal includes 6 items and the sample item is "When I'm faced with a stressful situation, I make myself think about it in a way that helps me stay calm". Expressive suppression is composed of 4 items and an example item is "When I am feeling positive emotions, I am careful not to express them". Items were scored on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (''strongly disagree'') to 7 (''strongly agree''). In this study the Cronbach's alpha was found to be .77. The reliability of the subscales were as follows: cognitive reappraisal: .71, expressive reappraisal: .75.
Organizational Commitment. To evaluate participants' commitment, Mowday et al.'s (1979) 'Organizational Commitment Questionnaire' (OCQ) was applied. This test comprises 15 items that measure the affective domain rather than normative or continuance domains of organizational commitment (Mowday et al., 1979). The sample items of this questionnaire are " I am willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond that normally expected in order to help this organization be successful", and " I could just as well be working for a different organization as long as the type of work was similar". Items were rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 ("strongly disagree") to 7 ("strongly agree"). In this study the Cronbach's alpha was found to be .81.

Procedure
The process of data collection started in September 2015 and finished in November 2015. Before distributing the questionnaires, the participants were assured about the confidentiality of their responses. The participants were given three questionnaires and the participation was totally voluntary. In order to analyze the data, the researchers employed SPSS 20 program. To investigate whether there was any correlation between teachers' organizational commitment, emotion regulation, and job motivation, a Pearson-product moment correlation was employed. By applying regression analysis, the researchers found out which components of emotion regulation and job motivation were the best predictors of teachers' organizational commitment. Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of EFL teachers' teacher commitment, emotion regulation, job motivation, and their corresponding subscales.

Results
Regarding the second research question, investigating the link between teacher commitment, emotion regulation, and job motivation, a Pearson product-moment correlation was run. Table 2 displays the results. Table 2 demonstrated a high correlation between teacher commitment and emotion regulation (r=.69, p<.01) and a high correlation between job motivation and emotion regulation (r=.61, p<.01). Also, this table shows a moderate correlation between teacher commitment and job motivation (r=.55, p<.01).  Table 3 indicates the correlation between teacher commitment (TC) and the subscales of emotion regulation and job motivation. As Table 3 revealed, among the subcomponents of emotion regulation (reappraisal and suppression) reappraisal has a higher correlation with teacher commitment (r=.63, p<.01). Also, among the constructs of job motivation (intrinsic motivation, identified motivation, introjected motivation, external motivation, and a-motivation) teacher commitment has the highest relationship with identified motivation (r=.71, p<.01) and there is no significant relationship between amotivation and teacher commitment.  Table 4 presents the correlation between the subscales of emotion regulation and job motivation. As Table 4 indicates, the highest correlation is observed between reappraisal and intrinsic motivation (r=.84, p<0.01) followed by the correlation between reappraisal and identified motivation (r=.76, p<0.01).

Royaei & Ghanizadeh -Instructors' Organizational Commitment
In order to answer the third research question detecting the best predictor of teacher commitment by the emotion regulation subscales, the researchers conducted a regression analysis. The results revealed that among the subcomponents of emotion regulation, reappraisal is a better predictor of teacher commitment (adjusted R 2 =.396, p<0.5). International and Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences,5(3) The R value of reappraisal is 0.63 which indicates the correlation coefficient between reappraisal and commitment. Its square value is 0.40 and its adjusted square is 0.396. It indicates that about 40% of the variation in teachers' commitment can be explained by taking their reappraisal into account. The results of Table 6, the second regression model, revealed that among the components of job motivation, identified regulation, is the best predictor of teacher commitment and can explain about 50 percent of its variance (adjusted R 2 =.509, p<0.5). The R value of reappraisal is 0.71 which indicates the correlation coefficient between identified regulation and motivation. Its square value is 242 Royaei & Ghanizadeh -Instructors' Organizational Commitment 0.51 and its adjusted square is 0.50. It indicates that about 50% of the variation in teachers' commitment can be explained by taking their identified regulation l into account.

Discussion
The present study aimed to extend our understanding of the dynamic bond between teacher commitment, emotion regulation, and job motivation among EFL instructors in higher education. The main concern was to investigate the contribution of emotion regulation and job motivation to teacher commitment. Based on the theoretical principles as well as empirical studies, we hypothesized that professors who possessed higher levels of emotion regulation and motivation are expected to exhibit more commitment toward their workplace. The findings of the study substantiated this hypothesis.
With regard to the first research question concerning the relationship between emotion regulation and commitment, the findings indicated that there was a significant link between instructors' emotion regulation and their commitment to their profession. This finding confirmed theoretical standpoints proposed by Meyer and Allen (1997) that affective factors are influential in individual's commitment. It is sensible to presume that the more teachers have control over their emotions, the better they can manage the various situations occurred in their classrooms. It is expected that these emotion managements be consistent with the instructors' organizational objectives to improve the quality of organizational achievements. What's more, it is quite indisputable that if teachers display more appropriate emotions in their career, it will hopefully contribute to their professional development and even learners' future profession (Ghanizadeh & Moafian, 2010;Ghanizadeh & Jahedizadeh, 2015). In this vain, Cardelle-Elawar and Sanz de Acedo Lizarraga (2010) argued that the importance of teachers' profession lies in constructing a context to enhance students' success process.
The present finding is consistent with research findings revealing that teacher commitment which refers to teachers' psychological and affective attachment to the teaching career, professional associations, and school, colleagues, parents and learners, can be taken into consideration as an important element for a school's culture and can be manifested in the instructors' cultivation and dedication to improve students' learning and the sense of loyalty to school (Chi-kin Lee, Zhang & Yin, 2011).
With regard to the second research question, investigating the relationship between teacher commitment and their motivation, the findings of this current study documented that there was a significant relationship between teachers' professional motivation and their commitment toward their organization. Two reasons for highlighting teacher commitment include (Park, 2005): first, it is conceived as an internal force emerging from teachers who are in dire need to display more accountability and flexibility in their profession as their educational levels have increased. Second, it is an external force emerged from educational reform movement pursuing high standards and accountability, which rely upon teachers' intended commitment. It seems plausible to perceive these internal and external facets as compatible with the two sides of motivation, i.e., intrinsic motivation referring to doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable, and extrinsic motivation, denoting doing something because it leads to an expected outcome. In the realm of teacher education, orientations of motivation commonly indicate which factors attract people to teach, how long they can persist in their profession, and the degree to which they are involved in their profession (Sinclair, 2008). Pervious research demonstrated that teachers' commitment exerts considerable influence on their professional performance (Park, 2005). It seems quite fundamental that in addition to interest in teaching, they should have a particular attachment to their work place since in such kind of framework various kinds of relationship (e.g. between teacher-student, teacher-teacher, and teachersupervisor) determine their job satisfaction. Teachers who are highly motivated are more committed to their job. It is not out of expectation that such teachers put more efforts in the teaching process and have a feeling of dedication to people who are in their professional zone like learners, colleagues, and supervisors (Ghanizadeh & Ghonsooly, 2014). When there is a high level of motivation among teachers, they try to gain more experience since they view motivation as an influential and constructive element in their professional functioning improvement. All these issues can flourish teachers' feeling of accountability. Besides, it is expected that intrinsically motivated 244 Royaei & Ghanizadeh -Instructors' Organizational Commitment teachers apply more emotional as well as instructional strategies in creating an appropriate and enjoyable context for optimal teachers' functioning as well as learners' performance.
Findings from regression analysis revealed that Iranian EFL teachers were more inclined to use reappraisal strategies as effective emotion regulation strategies in challenging situations. Teaching profession requires high amount of emotional needs and demands in unpredictable situations in comparison with other professions (Chang, 2009). As Davis (2001) articulated "teachers wear many hats such as friend, protector, mentor, disciplinarian, and gatekeeper to academic success" (p. 431). The bright side of teaching is that teaching provides contexts for fostering intimate as well as pleasant interactions with their learners and colleagues which pave the way for flourishing positive feelings such as excitement, passion, and hope (Chang, 2009). Appraisal theory highlights the cognitive domain of emotions claiming that individuals display emotions as a reaction to interpretations of an event (Roseman & Smith, 2001). Reappraisal strategies enable individuals to have better judgments of the occurrences around them (Gross & John, 2003).
The findings of the current study indicated that identified regulation was the best predictor of the instructors' organizational commitment. Identified regulation by definition refers to a kind of behavior that individuals select to act since such kind of behavior is consistent with their own values as well as aims (Fernet et al., 2008). This can plausibly be interpreted from a common sense perspective given that teachers who are actively involved in their professional affairs and have a strong sense of identification with the institution are typically predisposed to display high degree of self-regulatory skills in attaining their objectives. In other words, committed teachers are required to generate self-directed thoughts, feelings, and actions that are planned and cyclically adapted to the attainment of personal goals. This selfregulatory skill would in turn equip them with cognitive, affective, motivational, and behavioral components developing the capacity to adjust their actions and goals to achieve desired results in light of changing environmental conditions (Zeidner, Boekaerts & Pintrich, 2000). It has also been found that self-regulated teachers have been found to exhibit more interest and dedication toward their profession (Ghonsooly & Ghanizadeh, 2013).
It seems the issue of identified regulation motivation pertains even more potently to the higher education domain. As it is conceptualized by Fernet et al. (2008), individuals with identified regulation put attempts for the accomplishment of the organizational objectives of their workplace not just for their own personal goals. As stated earlier, what underpins all functions of higher education is contribution to society by equipping students to become fully-functioning members of the society. This necessitates efforts on the part of institutions administrations to strike a balance between faculty and institutional interests while giving priority to the organizational objectives in order to retain qualified and committed faculty members.

Conclusions
Teacher commitment is realized as a fundamental construct in school achievements since school overall achievement in enhancing learners' accomplishments can be reached via the teachers' active commitment to learners in classrooms (Chi-kin Lee et al., 2011). Teachers with organizational commitment tend to put more effort for organizational achievements and prefer to remain in their organization (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996, as cited in Choi & Tang, 2009. The findings of the present study underlined the contribution of motivational and emotional factors in shaping and influencing university instructors' organizational commitment. So it is crucial for instructors and policy makers to take into consideration the underpinning status of these factors in their practices and policies. In so doing, it is also expected that students' emotional states and motivational aspects are influenced given that is plausible to presume teachers who do not have ideal affective and attitudinal attributes would find it daunting or even unattainable to circulate healthy emotions and inspirations among their students. As Hargreaves (1998) viewed emotion as one of the most fundamental perspective for effective teaching and in line with Dὂrnyei's (2001) argument that in every classroom teachers are the most important ones in shaping learners' motivation, it can be contended that teachers' motivation affects learners' construction of interest in their academic achievement. From a theoretical standpoint, it is widely-known that instructors' instructional behavior exerts influence on their learners' emotions as they directly influence control and value appraisals, which have been documented to be significant predictors of learners' emotions (Becker, Goetz, Morger & Ranellucciwhen, 2014).