







































 

 

 

 

 

How does Job Crafting Impact on Career 

Commitment of Rural Teachers?

Ran Sun,
1
 Ping Du

2
 

 
1. Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, Hubei, China 

2. Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China 

 

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the current state of job 
crafting and career commitment of rural primary teachers and to 

analyze the relationship between the two variables as well as the 

influencing mechanisms through a questionnaire survey of 2,217 
primary school teachers in Liaoning, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guangxi, and 

Guizhou. The research findings showed that rural primary teachers 
exhibited a moderate level of capacity for job crafting and career 

commitment; that job crafting positively predicted career commitment 

among rural primary teachers; and that teachers’ self-efficacy and 
organizational support played mediating and moderating roles 

respectively in the relationship between the two variables. 

Best Evidence in Chinese Education 2023; 14(1):1751-1755. 

Doi: 10.15354/bece.23.ar055 

How to Cite: Sun, R., & Du, P. (2023). How does job crafting impact on career 

commitment of rural teachers? Best Evidence in Chinese Education, 14(1):1751-

1755 

Keywords: Job Crafting, Career Commitment, Teachers’ Self-Efficacy, Organizational 

Support, Person-Job Fit 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Sun & Du. (Hubei & Beijing, China). Job Crafting and Career Commitment of Rural Teachers. 

BECE, Vol.14, No.1, 2023 1752 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

About Authors: Ran Sun, School of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, Hubei, China. 

Correspondence to: Ping Du, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. E-mail: 

duping@bnu.edu.cn  
Conflict of Interests: None. 
 

© 2023 Insights Publisher. All rights reserved. 

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the 

Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 License 

(http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of 

the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed by the Insights Publisher. 

mailto:duping@bnu.edu.cn
http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/


Sun & Du. (Hubei & Beijing, China). Job Crafting and Career Commitment of Rural Teachers. 

BECE, Vol.14, No. 1, 2023 1753 

 

Introduction 

Career commitment is about an individual’s identification with the value of their career 

or occupation and an indicator of the extent to which they engage in their current pro-

fession (Meyer et al., 1993). Job crafting is an individually driven work design process 

which gives full play to individuals’ agency in workplace, helping them attain meaning 

at work and personal development. It is viewed as an important means for teachers to 

autonomously expand their job resources (Qi, 2016). In the current context of rural edu-

cation with limited resources, can teachers actively tap endogenous resources to achieve 

work goals and improve professional commitment? Can job crafting of Chinese rural 

teachers positively predict their career commitment? This study aims to present the cur-

rent state of job crafting and career commitment among rural teachers and to explore 

their relations from the perspective of job redesign, utilizing data of rural primary 

teachers in five provincial administrative regions in China. 

Data Sources and Selection of Variables 

The data in this article was derived from a survey in 2020 of compulsory education 

teachers in five provincial administrative regions: Liaoning, Yunnan, Guangxi, and 

Guizhou Provinces and Chongqing City. Adopting stratified random sampling, the re-

search team first selected one economically less developed county from each region, 

and then picked one moderately developed township and one underdeveloped township 

from each county. After that, one demonstration primary school and two ordinary pri-

mary schools from each county, and one central primary school, one village primary 

school, and two teaching sites from each of the two townships were included in the in-

vestigation; a total of 2217 primary teachers were surveyed. 

The independent variable in this study was teacher job crafting, measured by 

the job crafting scale developed by Slemp and Vella-Rodrick (2013). Teacher career 

commitment was the dependent variable, measured by the primary and secondary 

teachers’ career commitment scale created by Li (2001). Teacher self-efficacy was the 

mediator, measured by Yu et al.’s (1995) simplified version of the general self-efficacy 

scale, while teacher organizational support was measured by the primary teachers’ per-

ception of organizational support scale created by the research team according to the 

actual educational experience of primary teachers.  

Research Findings 

Common Method Biases Test 

The test results showed that there were seven principal factors that have a greater-than-1 

characteristic root and that the variance explained by the top factor was 36.4%, which 

was less than the critical value of 40%. That indicated that the common method biases 

were not significant. 



Sun & Du. (Hubei & Beijing, China). Job Crafting and Career Commitment of Rural Teachers. 

BECE, Vol.14, No. 1, 2023 1754 

 

Descriptive Statistics of Variables and Relevant Anal-

yses 

(i) The mean value of job crafting of rural teachers was 3.87, with the mean of their 

cognitive crafting being the highest (4.04) and that of their relationship crafting being 

the lowest (3.76), both of which were slightly higher than the critical value of 3. The 

analysis results showed there was no significant difference in job crafting performance 

between rural and urban primary teachers. (ii) The mean value of career commitment of 

rural teachers was 3.17, with the mean of their normative commitment being the highest 

(3.32) and their continuance commitment being the lowest (2.92), both of which were 

above the critical value of 2, but slightly lower than the level of career commitment 

among urban teachers. (iii) The self-efficacy of rural teachers was similar to that of ur-

ban teachers, and their perception of organizational support was slightly lower than that 

of the latter, with both being above the critical value of 2. 

Verification of Hypotheses 

This study constructed structural equation models based on samples of urban and rural 

teachers to verify hypotheses 1 and 2. The structural equation model based on the sam-

ple of rural teachers resulted in a satisfactory goodness of fit: RMSEA = 0 06, CFI = 0. 

90, TLI = 0. 90, SRMR = 0. 06; Job crafting of rural primary teachers could significant-

ly and positively predict their career commitment, and their self-efficacy posed a medi-

ating effect on the relation between the two variables. Thus, H1 and H2 were confirmed. 

The study also constructed latent moderation models based on samples of urban and 

rural teacher to verify hypothesis 3. The results demonstrated that both teachers’ job 

crafting and perception of organizational support significantly and positively predict 

career commitment, with the former having a greater effect than the latter. 

Conclusions 

The rural primary teachers sampled exhibit a moderate level of capacity for job crafting. 

Job crafting has the potential of enhancing career commitment of rural primary teachers. 

The effect of teacher job crafting on career commitment is mediated by teacher self-

efficacy. Organizational support significantly and positively moderates the positive re-

lationship between job crafting and career commitment of rural primary teachers. 

 

 

 

 

 

References
Li, X. (2001). The Development of a Primary and 

Secondary Teacher Career Commitment 

Questionnaire (master’s thesis). Central Chi-

na Normal University. 2001. 

Meyer, J. P., Allen, N. J., & Smith, C. A. (1993). 

Commitment to organizations and occupa-

tions: Extension and test of a three-

component conceptualization. Journal of Ap-



Sun & Du. (Hubei & Beijing, China). Job Crafting and Career Commitment of Rural Teachers. 

BECE, Vol.14, No. 1, 2023 1755 

 

plied Psychology, 78(4):538-551. DOI: 

https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.78.4.538  

Qi, Y. J., Wu, X. C., & Wang, X. L. (2016). A 

cross-lagged regression analysis of job craft-

ing and work engagement of primary and 

secondary teachers. Chinese Journal of Clini-

cal Psychology, 2016(5):5. 

Slemp, G. R., & Vella-Brodrick, D. A. (2013). 

The job crafting questionnaire: A new scale 

to measure the extent to which employees 

engage in job crafting. International Journal 

of Wellbeing, 3(2):126-146. DOI: 

https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v3i2.1  

Yu, G. L., Xin, T., & Shen, J. L. (1995). Teachers’ 

instruction efficacy: The structure and influ-

encing factors. Journal of Psychology, 

27(2):159-166. DOI: 

https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02006258  

 

 

The Chinese version of this article has been published in Educational Research and Experiment, 

2023, 2023(02): 92-101. The English version has been authorized for being publication in BECE by 

the author(s) and the Chinese journal. 

 

孙冉, 杜屏. (2023). 乡村教师工作重塑对职业承诺的影响及其机制. 教育研究与实验, 2023, 
2023(2):92-101. 

 

 

Received: 20 April 2023 

Revised: 03 May 2023 

Accepted: 15May 2023 

 

 

 

 

 

https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.78.4.538
https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v3i2.1
https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02006258

	AR2-PingDu-BECE_TitleMay_2023
	AR2-PingDu-BECE_MaintextMay2023

