The relationships among teacher attributes, perceived support, and teachers` Islamic behaviour

Abstract

Islamic teachers have a crucial role in promoting to their students the proper understanding of Islamic ethics and morality. It is not only the teachers’ obligation to impart the useful knowledge to their pupils, but have to serve as models to be emulated. This study attempts to examine the relationships of two factors namely, teachers’ attributes (self-efficacy, values, Islamic work ethic, and organizational commitment), and the perceived support (school and principal, curriculum, peer and community), on the outcome of teachers’ Islamic behavior (TIB). The study used a sample of 561 Muslim teachers in elementary public schools in six provinces, in southern Thailand. This study utilized the two-step analysis of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The first three research questions were analyzed with the three measurement models and found that the proposed constructs namely Teacher Attributes Scale (TAS), Teachers’ Perceived Support Scale (TPSS) and Teachers’ Islamic Behavior Scale (TIBS) were loaded on their respective constructs. The third and fourth research questions were analyzed with a hypothesized and a re-specified model. The results indicated the TIB model is very encouraging ( X2/df = 2.577, TLI = 918, CFI = .928, GFI = .908, IFI = .929 and RMSEA = .053). However, the model was a significant chi-square statistics; p = .001 which is lower than the expected limits (?.05). Even though, all four proposed teacher attributes factors influenced teachers’ Islamic behavior, but the model revealed that only two factors of teachers’ perceived support, namely peer and curriculum support which have directly influenced their Islamic behavior. The discussion centers the theoretical, methodological and practical implications of these results.