Teacher Accountability for Teacher Occupational Professionalism: The Effect of Accountability on Occupational Awareness with the Mediating Roles of Contribution to Organization, Emotional Labor and Personal Development

Accountability enables teachers to exhibit professional behaviors in school processes. However, the contribution of accountability to teacher occupational professionalism depends on the effective structuring of accountability mechanisms. It is necessary to examine how the connection between teacher occupational professionalism and accountability can be effectively established in line with different conceptual models. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship between teacher accountability and occupational professionalism by analyzing a proposed conceptual model of accountability and occupational professionalism dimensions. The first step for effective accountability mechanisms is to raise occupational awareness. Therefore, the effect of teacher accountability on teacher occupational awareness, which is one of the components of occupational professionalism, was examined with the mediating roles of contribution to organization, emotional labor and personal development dimensions of occupational professionalism. Employing correlational research design, the study sample included 576 middle school teachers from Gaziantep province in the southeast of Turkey. The study revealed that contribution to organization and emotional labor play a partially mediating role in the relationship between accountability and occupational awareness. However, teacher personal development has no mediating role. The results present a framework to develop teacher personal accountability supporting teacher occupational professionalism.