Abstract
The Impact of the Sense of Vocation of Childcare teachers on their Feeling of Happiness
-Focused on the regulating effect of organizational commitment-

Seong-mi Hong
Graduate School of Catholic Kwandong University
Department of Social Welfare (Major of Social Welfare)
Advisory Professor: Jae-wook Go

As people’s interest in the importance of improving the quality of child care has increased, this study was conducted to examine the impact of the sense of vocation of childcare teachers on their feeling of happiness and whether their organizational commitment regulates their feeling of happiness from an empirical perspective in an effort to improve the professionalism of childcare teachers and the quality of child care. The results of this study are expected to contribute to expanding the understanding of the sense of vocation of childcare teachers, verifying the regulating effect of their organizational commitment on their feeling of happiness and thus facilitate the development of measures to improve the sense of vocation, feeling of happiness and organizational commitment of childcare teachers. This study also aimed to develop measures to systematically support the improvement of the quality of childcare human resources and services based on the results obtained.
To achieve the objectives of this study, the following research questions were established:
First, what impact does the sense of vocation of childcare teachers have on their feeling of happiness?
Second, does the organizational commitment of childcare teachers have a regulating effect in the relationship between their sense of vocation and feeling of happiness?
A questionnaire survey was conducted on childcare teachers who work in childcare centers in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do. A frequency analysis, factor analysis and reliability analysis were performed using the SPSS Ver 20.0 statistical program, and a correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis and moderating effect analysis were also performed to verify the research questions.
The results of this study showed that, first, the sense of vocation of childcare teachers affected their feeling of happiness, and that the more aware they were of their sense of vocation, the higher their external happiness, inner happiness and self-regulated happiness.
Second, the results of analyzing the impact of the organizational commitment of childcare teachers on their feeling of happiness indicated that their organizational commitment partially affected their feeling of happiness. In other words, the more aware they were of their organizational commitment, the higher their feeling of happiness. In addition, the more aware childcare teachers were of their affective commitment, the higher their external happiness, inner happiness and self-regulated happiness. The more aware they were of their normative commitment, the higher their external happiness, inner happiness and self-regulated happiness. On the other hand, it was found that the continuance commitment that childcare teachers were aware of did not affect their external happiness, inner happiness and self-regulated happiness.
Lastly, the regulating effect of the organizational commitment of childcare teachers in regard to the impact of their sense of vocation on their feeling of happiness was analyzed, and the results showed that their affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment did not have the effect of regulating the impact of their sense of vocation on their external happiness. In addition, the results of analyzing the regulating effect of the organizational commitment of childcare teachers with regard to the impact of their sense of vocation on their inner happiness showed that only their continuance commitment and normative commitment, not their affective commitment, had an interaction effect. In other words, the continuance commitment and normative commitment of childcare teachers had the effect of regulating the impact of their sense of vocation on their inner happiness. The results of analyzing the regulating effect of the organizational commitment of childchare teachers as regards the impact of their sense of vocation on their self-regulated happiness showed that only their affective commitment and normative commitment, not their continuance commitment, had an interaction effect. In other words, the affective commitment and normative commitment of chidcare teachers had the effect of regulating the impact of their sense of vocation on their self-regulated happiness.
These results indicated that, first, the sense of vocation of childcare teachers affects their feeling of happiness, which requires practical interventions to improve their sense of vocation, one of their inner psychological factors, and thus to increase their feeling of happiness. Second, it was also found that the higher the affective commitment and normative commitment of childcare teachers among the sub-factors of their organizational commitment, the more aware they are of their feeling of happiness. Therefore, practical education needs to be provided and supported from a long-term perspective to improve the professional attitude, knowledge and skills of childcare teachers and thus to increase their organizational commitment. Third, the organizational commitment of childcare teachers acts as a moderating variable for the their sense of vocation to improve their inner happiness and self-regulated happiness. In this regard, multi-faceted efforts need to be made to improve their feeling of happiness by considering not only personal psychological factors but also environmental factors.
This study has a significance in that it examined the relationship between the sense of vocation and organizational commitment of childcare teachers that affect their feeling of happiness in light of the increasing demand for improved quality in child care and the increasing attention being paid to their feeling of happiness.

Key words: childcare teacher, sense of vocation, feeling of happiness, organizational commitment