s2fieldsofstudy: Education Business

text:
Analysis of the Relationship between Teachers ’ Perceptions of Organizational Identification and Meaningful Work

: Teachers that identify with their organizations and find meaning at work can contribute to their students and schools from various aspects. However, there is limited evidence on teacher perceptions of organizational identification and meaningful work in the literature. The present research aims to determine the relationship between teachers’ organizational identification and meaningful work perceptions. This quantitative research is in correlational design. The sample of the research consists of 330 teachers working in Kahramanmaraş. The scales of meaningful work for educational organizations and organizational identification were used as data collection tools. In the analysis of the data, Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated, and regression analyses were performed. Research findings show that there is a positive, moderately significant relationship between organizational identification and meaningful work. Organizational identification is a significant predictor of meaningful work. Organizational identification has positive and moderately significant relationships with the sub-dimensions of meaningful work (meaning at work, transcendence at work, work relationships, meaning leadership at work, humility at work), and it is a significant predictor of these dimensions. Nevertheless, it shows no significant relationship with the dimension of search for meaning at work. Implications for identifying with organizations and meaningful work are discussed.

Moreover, organizational identification is expected to contribute to the creation of meaning at work (Schnell et al., 2019). Thus, the concept of organizational identification can affect the meaning at work and have an important place in educational organizations. This study focuses on the relationship between organizational identification and meaningful work and examines whether organizational identification predicts meaningful work. As a matter of fact, while it has been determined in various studies that meaningful work predicts organizational identification (Cohen-Meitar et al., 2009;Demirtas et al., 2015;Ouwerkerk & Bartels, 2022), we assume, like Schnell et al. (2019), that organizational identification may be an antecedent of meaningful work because we expect that teachers who identify with their organizations will increase their sense of meaningful work and thus contribute more to their students and schools.

Organizational Identification
Organizational identification has the potential to define and predict many key behaviors and attitudes in the workplace and is considered a psychological state that reflects the fundamental bond that exists between the organization and the employee (Edwards, 2005). While organizational identification is complex in nature, the key point is that it addresses relationships between organizations and individuals. This link indirectly affects the total performance and development of the organization, so it should be regarded as an essential part of organizational behavior (Fuchs, 2012). Organizations are consequential groups with which individuals can identify at various levels. Social identity theory, in which the concept of identification is addressed, is used to define and explore the psychological basis of intergroup behavior and outgroup discrimination. It specifies the elements of identification, as well as provides estimates of the conditional variability of identification. In this context, self-categorization theory, which indicates whether people describe themselves in terms of social identity, personal, and which group is related to behavior in the case of distinctive social identities, contributed to the assumptions of social identity theory by addressing the behaviors of in-group members. The self-categorization theory asserts that individuals can consider themselves at certain levels, such as personal, middle or group, and upper (Van Dick, 2001). Hence, the concept of organizational identification has areas where the researchers may address each of these levels to reveal specifically the effects of themselves, their groups, administrations, or other factors on individuals' identification with their institutions.
Identification with the organization has been seen as a critical factor for understanding work behavior (Lee, 1971). Organizational identification is defined as a perception of sharing the experiences and characteristics of group members (Mael & Tetrick, 1992). Conversely, identification can also have negative effects on the organization. These may arise from conflicting identities between different focus and prototypical in-group norms and also may cause over-identification that can lead to the unconditional follow-up of organizational rules and the prevention of innovation initiatives (Van Dick, 2001). However, if used as an effective tool to increase organizational functioning and performance, organizational identification can help achieve the desired results. The effect of organizational identification on the success of the organization is hidden in the behaviors of the employees to contribute to the organizational goals. This is facilitated when organizational goals and individuals' goals are aligned, so there is also theoretical and empirical evidence that organizations perform better (Fuchs, 2012). In this direction, it can be assumed that teachers who identify with their schools can have a more positive effect on students' learning.

Meaningful Work
People require meaning in their lives. This meaning is a bridge from negative emotion led by negative life experiences to positive emotion through restructuring cognitively (O'Connor, 2003). In order to understand what the meaning of life means, the concepts of adaptation, purpose, and importance can be discussed: Adaptation means a sense of being understood and giving meaning to one's life. Purpose refers to key goals, purposes, and a sense of guidance in life. Importance, however, is about the intrinsic value of life and the feeling of having a valuable life (Martela & Steger, 2016). Studies on meaning in life examine a person's basic orientation to the world by addressing everything that is critical for a person's past, present, and future (Steger, 2012). In this context, the meaning people seek in their work, which is a part of their life, also has an important place in making sense of their life.
Meaningful work has been a body of growing research in recent years, with an understanding of the importance of meaningfulness for commitment, work motivation, and well-being. However, various researchers use partially overlapping, partially different conceptualizations (Martela & Pessi, 2018). The concept of 'meaningful work' refers to the positive meaning of the job that individuals experience as significant in the relevant literature. The meaning of work has two sources: the self (values, motivation, beliefs) and others (co-workers, leaders, communities and groups, family) (Rosso et al., 2010). Work meanings represent a significant part of how employees see their experience in their organization. There are two kinds of meanings related to work. These are the tasks and activities themselves (the content) and the meaning formed by assessing those tasks and activities. The meaning of work is fluid and can be configured while doing the work. Therefore, it is not constant . How people make sense of their work positively affects their individual development, the groups, and the organizations they find themselves a part of. Ultimately, individuals' deciding what role they will play in the life stage can enable them to find deeper meaning in work (Wrzesniewski, 2003). However, meaningful work has been found to be the foremost protector of well-being and burnout, but attention has also been drawn to studies showing that it can be a potential source of burnout because it causes working beyond its limits (Correia & Almeida, 2020). Therefore, within the scope of meaning at work as a motivational construct, the sense of self and the sense of balance stand out as critical dimensions besides the work itself (Chalofsky, 2003). Namely, it is important for employees to find a balance between work and life, no matter what organization they are in.
Meaningful work can be a source for a person to maintain a satisfactory work life in line with the values he/she has and to develop a transpersonal relationship at work. For teachers, practicing their profession has a special meaning in terms of the process of serving society and transferring social values, apart from the purpose of income. Due to the dignity of teaching, the meaning that society ascribes to this profession is also high. However, what makes the work meaningful is the meaning that the teacher ascribes to his/her job rather than the meaning and sanctity that society ascribes to the professional or the job. A teacher's sense of meaningful work can assume the role of either a mere educator or a savior in the eyes of students (Göçen & Terzi, 2019). That draws attention to the role of the teachers in conveying social values to students and preparing them for the future more effectively, thanks to the fact that the teachers find their jobs meaningful.

The Relation between Organizational Identification and Meaningful Work
Meaningful work is related to engagement, social support, organizational commitment, organizational identification, psychological ownership, and socio-moral climate. Research on these concepts deals with the attitudes and relationships of employees towards co-workers, supervisors, and higher-level social systems (such as work teams or the organization) (Schnell et al., 2019). In this context, a study by Ouwerkerk and Bartels (2022) on identification, meaningful work, organizational behavior, and job insecurity during the coronavirus shutdowns included employees from over 14 industries in the Netherlands. Similarly, the effects of professional identification, organizational justice, empathy, and meaningful work on burnout in doctors and nurses during the coronavirus pandemic were examined (Correia & Almeida, 2020). Akdoğan et al. (2016) investigated the strategic effect of social responsibility on organizational identification and meaningful work through ethical leadership perceptions. The data were gathered from the workers of an aviation company in Turkey. In another study on aviation workers, Demirtas et al. (2015) analyzed the effect of ethical leadership on organizational identification, follower engagement, and jealousy through meaningful work. One of these studies (Ouwerkerk & Bartels, 2022) included a small number of employees from the education sector.
Some other recent studies regarding teachers in the related literature are as follows: the relationship between teachers' reasons for whistleblowing, organizational cynicism and identification (Kaya et al., 2022), and the association between teachers' perceptions of meaningful work and their decision-making styles , the level of meaningful work among teachers and the relevant factors (Toptaş, 2018), the relationship between perceptions of total reward, work engagement, and organizational identification among Chinese kindergarten teachers (Ji & Cui, 2021), organizational change facilitated by the motivation of change agents through organizational identification and meaning (Specht et al., 2018). Furthermore, metaanalyses on organizational identification (Lee et al., 2015) and meaningful work (Allan et al., 2018) show that organizational identification is highly associated with key attitudes (work involvement, affective organizational commitment, and job satisfaction) and behaviors in organizations while meaningful work has relationships with commitment, work engagement, and job satisfaction; links with life meaning, life satisfaction, withdrawal intentions, general health; and associations with self-rated job performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, and negative affect. These results indicate that organizational identification and meaningful work have related concepts.
This research aims to determine the relationship between teachers' perceptions of organizational identification and meaningful work. It is thought that the identification of teachers with their institutions and the level of meaningfulness of their work in educational institutions and studies on these topics can contribute to students, teachers, and schools. In this context, teachers who identify with their school and find their work meaningful are more likely to take action to increase school success. Therefore, this research is expected to provide evidence to the literature in terms of revealing the relationship between meaningful work and identification perceptions of teachers in educational organizations. The relevant literature shows that the studies regarding teachers' perceptions of meaningful work and organizational identification are limited.
Since little is known about the relationship between teachers' organizational identification and meaningful work perceptions, it is considered important that studies on this subject have the potential to provide evidence on identifying with organizations and experiencing meaningful work. Moreover, it is thought that the findings can bring new perspectives to organizations and administrators. From this point of view, the present research examines whether there is a relationship between teachers' organizational identification and meaningful work perceptions, and answers have been sought to the following questions: 1. What is the level of teachers' organizational identification and meaningful work perceptions?
2. Is there a significant association between teachers' organizational identification and meaningful work perceptions?
3. Do teachers' perceptions of organizational identification predict meaningful work perceptions?

Method Research Design
This study is quantitative research in correlational design. Correlational designs are quantitative research procedures in which researchers consider the degree of relationship between two or more variables by using the correlational analysis statistically (Creswell, 2015). Since this study aims to reveal the link between teachers' organizational identification and meaningful work perceptions, the correlational design enables the researchers to investigate this relationship.

Population and Sample
The population of this research includes 8957 teachers working in Kahramanmaraş province in the 2021-2022 academic year. The sample of the study comprises 330 participants determined with the simple random sampling technique providing equal probability of teachers' participation in the study. After the sample group was formed, the measurement tool form was reproduced as 420 pieces. The researcher collected the research data from the teachers who voluntarily wanted to participate within the scope of the research population. Before starting the analysis of the data, 23 forms that were found to be incompletely filled were excluded from the evaluation, and data analyses were conducted with 330 returned forms. The return rate of the measurement tool forms taken into the evaluation was 78.5%. Table 1 presents information about the teachers in the sample group. It can be stated, according to Table 1, that the teachers participating in the research show sufficient diversity in terms of gender, age, specialty, faculty that they graduated from, and professional seniority. The high number of female participants means that female teachers are more involved in this task than males; On the other hand, the high number of teachers under the age of 40 and with seniority of less than 11 years can be explained by the low average age of teachers across the country.

Data Collection Tools
The research used a personal information form, the meaningful work scale for educational organizations, and the organizational identification scale as data collection tools. The researchers developed the personal information form. The form includes questions about age, gender, branch, graduation, graduated faculty, and professional seniority.
'Meaningful Work Scale for Educational Organizations' was developed by Göçen and Terzi (2019) Mael and Ashforth (1992), and the adaptation into Turkish was made by Şahin (2014). The scale has six items and one dimension. To test its validity, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied in the Amos 22 program and the one-dimensional structure was examined. DFA results [χ2/df=1.58; AGFI=.95; GFI=.98; NFI=.95; CFI=.98; RMSEA=.04] showed that the scale had construct validity. The Cronbach Alpha value for the scale's reliability was calculated as .84.

Data Analysis
The data collected through printed forms were transferred to Microsoft Excel, then SPSS before starting the data analysis. SPSS 25.0 program was used in the analysis of the data. Data distribution was tested. Since the calculated kurtosis and skewness values were between -1.5 and +1.5 (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013), the data were considered to be normally distributed. For this reason, parametric tests were used. Analyses such as arithmetic mean, standard deviation, Pearson correlation test, and regression were used. Limits regarding the level of perceptions in the measurement tools used in the research were determined. While determining these limits, the level range was accepted as 0.80 (Score Range=Highest value-Least value/N). The values between 1.00-2.59 was interpreted as low level, 2.60-3.39 as moderate (medium), 3.40-5.00 as high. A correlation coefficient between 0.1 and 0.3 indicates a low level, values between .3 and .5 show that the relationship is moderate (medium), and values greater than .05 indicate a high level of relationship (Field, 2018). The significance level was accepted as p<.05 in the analysis of the data. Table 2 includes the measures of central tendency of variables and kurtosis-skewness coefficients.  Table 2 shows that the values of skewness and kurtosis are between -1.5 and +1.5. These values show the normal distribution. Therefore, parametric statistics were used in this study.

Ethical Procedures
This study was found ethically appropriate by the Social and Human Sciences Scientific Research Ethics Committee of Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University with its decision dated 09.07.2021 and numbered E. 43426.

Results
The study examined the levels of teachers' organizational identification and meaningful work perceptions by considering the dimensions. The findings are given in Table 3.  Table 3 indicates that the average of teachers' perceptions of organizational identification is 3.32 (moderate) and the general average of meaningful work perceptions is 3.95 (high). It is determined that the search for meaning at work dimension of the meaningful work scale is at a medium level and the other dimensions were at a high level.
Pearson's Correlation Analysis was done to determine whether there was a relationship between teachers' organizational identification and meaningful work perceptions. The findings are given in Table 4. The findings in Table 4 show that there is a positive and moderate relationship between organizational identification and meaningful work perceptions (r=.381; p<.05). When the dimensions of the meaningful work scale are examined in particular, it is understood that similar findings are obtained and that there is positive significant relationships between organizational identification and meaning at work, work relationships, transcendence at work, humility at work, and meaning leadership at work dimensions. However, it is seen that there is no significant correlation between organizational identification and the search for meaning at work dimension.
A simple regression test was conducted to reveal the extent to which teachers' organizational identification perceptions predicted meaningful job perceptions. The obtained findings are shown in Table 5. As seen in Table 5, organizational identification was revealed to be a significant predictor of meaningful work perceptions (R=.381; R 2 =.145; p<.05). According to the findings, teachers' perceptions of organizational identification explain 14.5% of meaningful work perceptions.
Simple regression tests were done to reveal the extent to which organizational identification predicted the sub-dimensions of meaningful work. The search for meaning dimension was not included in this analysis because it did not have a significant relationship with organizational identification. The findings are shown in Table 6 and Table 7.  Table 6 shows that Organizational identification is a significant predictor of meaning at work (R=.334; R 2 =.111; p<.05), work relationship (R=.302; R 2 =.091; p<.05), and transcendence at work (R=.381; R 2 =.145; p<.05) variables. Organizational identification explains 11% of the variance for the meaning at work sub-dimension, 9% of the variance for work relationships sub-dimension, and 14% of the variance for the transcendence at work sub-dimension.  Table 7 shows that Organizational identification is a significant predictor of humility at work (R=.191; R 2 =.036; p<.05), and meaning leadership at work variables (R=.271; R 2 =.073; p<.05). Organizational identification explains 3% of the variance for humility at work sub-dimension, and 7% of the variance for meaning leadership at work sub-dimension.

Discussion and Conclusion
This research aims to determine the relationship between teachers' perception levels of organizational identification and meaningful work. In addition to this main purpose, teachers' organizational identification and meaningful job perception levels were determined, and it was revealed whether organizational identification was a significant predictor of meaningful work perceptions. The findings show that teachers' organizational identification perceptions are moderate and meaningful work perception levels are high. In the study by Toptaş (2018), it was seen that teachers' levels of finding their jobs meaningful are high. In this context, educators who identify with their organizations show emotional and normative commitment by following the mission of their institutions and expressing their affection for their students and institutions. Yet, participants who have not been identified are likely to leave their institutions (Orphan & Broom, 2021). However, people with a high sense of meaningful work do their jobs with a sense of service and benefit to a much wider community than themselves. The sense of meaningful work in educational organizations appears as the teacher's interpretation and action in the context of a necessary compass that guides the future of society. The fact that teachers, who have the chance to touch the lives of thousands, perform their profession in the form of service to the society in a higher purpose beyond letters and supports the self-realization of teachers who feel this (Göçen & Terzi, 2019). Therefore, the fact that teachers identify with their schools and have a high meaningful work perception indicates that they can make significant contributions to the society through their students and schools.
According to another result of the research, there is a positive, moderate relationship between organizational identification and meaningful work perceptions of teachers. In addition, organizational identification is a significant predictor of meaningful work perceptions. When the dimensions of the meaningful work scale were examined specifically, it was seen that there was a significant association between organizational identification and the dimensions of meaning at work, transcendence at work, work relationships, meaning leadership at work, humility at work, and organizational identification was a significant predictor of these dimensions. The order of importance in explaining these dimensions was as follows: Transcendence at Work, Meaning at work, Work Relationships, Meaning Leadership at Work, Humility at Work. The literature shows similar results. Some studies (Akdoğan et al., 2016;Correia & Almeida, 2020;Demirtas et al., 2015) discovered moderately positive relationships between meaningful work and organizational identification. Similarly, moderately positive significant relationships were found between positive meaning and identification with the organization and colleagues (Ouwerkerk & Bartels, 2022). While the literature showed that meaningful work predicts organizational identification, organizational identification predicts meaningful work as seen in the present research. In this context, the research findings support the researchers (Schnell et al. 2019) who assert that both causal aspects are plausible and possibly mutually influencing and reinforcing each other when considering organizational identification and meaningful work. Accordingly, it can be stated that teachers' finding their work meaningful may affect identifying with their schools or vice versa.
In this study, a different finding shows no significant association between organizational identification and the dimension of seeking meaning at work. In other words, although there is a low negative correlation between search for meaning at work dimension and organizational identification, this is not statistically significant. As a matter of fact, this finding can be interpreted that identifying with their organizations is not associated with the search of meaning at work. As meaning makers, leaders identify their followers' meanings with those of their organizations and can inspire beyond these legal ties. However, it can protect employees like teachers from emotional problems (Göçen, 2021). Thus, meaningful work can be seen as a structure that is compatible with the individuals, enabling them to realize themselves and contribute to society. In other words, meaningful work is the work in which the individuals find themselves and identify. Meaningful work can serve the individual goals and needs of employees through organizational behavior (Toptaş, 2018). In this context, Van Dick (2001) emphasizes that while it is argued that organizational identification is more important for many people than other categories such as age, gender, or ethnicity to which they belong, the organizational groups (teams, work groups etc.) how well it performs compared to other groups also depends on the individual efforts of each member. Thus, members should help their organizations become better. According to this point of view, members of the organization are expected to show participation, in-role and out-of-role behaviors, low absenteeism to build or improve their self-esteem. Therefore, teachers who identify with their organizations and develop self-esteem are expected to find meaning at work.
There is some evidence showing positive relationships between teachers' work engagement and organizational identification, job performance, learning-based orientation and organizational citizenship behavior (Chughtai & Buckley, 2009). In this context, recognizing the similarities and differences of people in work groups can improve identification, and that increases the performance. These effects can be seen directly applicable by managers when dealing with and structuring work teams, determining rewards etc. (Van Dick, 2001). Organizational identification is seen as a significant predictor of work motivation, as identified workers can engage in behaviors that benefit their workgroup or organization (Ouwerkerk & Bartels, 2022). However, meaning at work consists of evaluations conveyed by various people experienced at work. The interpersonal dynamics that arise between people in the workplace create a strong context of work meanings. The ability to comprehend the process allows employees to reach the deeper meaning of on-the-work experience. The meaning of work can be considered as an emerging feature of the social scene at work. This subject, which is treated as individual processes, has rich relational foundations. While emphasizing the role of others in the workplace, the active role that employees play in creating work meaning through interpersonal meaning is also important. As a matter of fact, the social context draws attention to the roles of others in making sense of work . Hence, it can be said that teachers' relationships with their colleagues and school administration, which are factors that affect their identification with their school, have an important role in teachers' perceptions of making sense of work. In addition, the school administrators' knowing their teachers well can contribute to this identification and meaningful work processes.
Organizations should actively support and foster managers' capacity to rethink work environments and cultures to foster greater sentiments of meaningful work. Additionally, by putting the "job crafting" idea into practice, organizations can encourage their staff to have more meaningful work experiences. Additionally, it is the responsibility of senior management to concentrate on aspects of the job that could alter employees' personal needs and make them view their work as having more meaningful (Ghadi et al., 2015). Meaningful leadership can contribute to self-realization of members in educational organizations, and provide an intrinsic motivation factor for all school members. In qualitative research with teachers, ten main themes about meaningful leadership emerged (Göçen, 2021): a high purpose in life, connecting the past-present-future, allocation of meaning, peacefulness, insight, serving others, a moral compass, fostering unity, and inner motivation. In a similar study on how leaders can build their meaningful work and their employees' meaningful work (Frémeaux & Pavageau, 2022), 42 interviews with leaders were conducted. It is discussed how leaders make sense of leadership practices, which are accepted as contributing factors to meaningful work in the relevant literature. New components of meaning associated with leadership effectiveness have been identified as moral exemplary, personal/professional support, self-awareness, community spirit, commitment to collaborative work, and a positive attitude towards situations and individuals.
With a meaningful and democratic division of work instead of a hierarchical division of work, all employees who can participate in shaping an institution's policies have the opportunity to act as autonomous individuals and encourage their autonomous development (Schwartz, 1982). However, organizational communication can play a very important role in maintaining a sense of identification. In this context, research is needed on how face-to-face and electronic communication can contribute to this. As a matter of fact, it has been determined that the lockdowns due to Covid 19, the employees find their jobs less meaningful, and they identify less with their colleagues and work (Ouwerkerk & Bartels, 2022). On the other hand, many people want meaningful work. There are also numerous books, seminars and websites to help people find meaning and purpose in their work . By taking these factors into account, administrators and policymakers in schools should support teachers in terms of autonomy, participation in decisions, cooperation, feedback, and development opportunities, so that the development of a sense of meaning for teachers is possible with the preparation of an environment where teachers can experience the feeling of being a contributor (Göçen & Terzi, 2019). Thus, school administrations and senior administrations should employ practices that will increase the level of organizational identification and meaningful work perceptions of teachers.

Limitations and Recommendations
This research is limited to the participation of teachers working in a province in Türkiye. Moreover, the fact that only the teachers working in public schools constitute the sample of the research is seen as a limitation. Future research can include teachers in different provinces and private schools. Besides, researchers can examine how school administrators, colleagues, and senior management affect teachers' perceptions of organizational identification and meaningful work. The effect of these situations on student achievement can also be investigated. Mixed methods research can be conducted with teachers and school administrators to expand the literature evidence on organizational identification and meaningful work.


The Implementation Of Education Management Standards In Improving The Quality Of Graduates Of Madrasah Tsanawiyah In Karawang

This research background is the implementation of education management standards that have not been able to answer the needs and demands of the community regarding the quality of madrasah graduates. The purpose of this study is to investigate and obtain an overview about the implementation of education management standards in improving the quality of madrasah graduates through planning, implementation, evaluation, constraints and solutions. This study was conducted at two Madrasah Tsanawiyah Negeri of Karawang, West Java Province, namely MTs Al-Ahliyah Karawang and MTs Negeri 5 Karawang. The method used is qualitative approach with descriptive analytics methods, and data collection uses observation, interviews, and documentation studies. Research findings reveal that the implementation of Education Management Standards at MTs Al-Ahliyah Karawang Regency and MTs Negeri 5 Karawang has been going well but cannot be said to be optimal because there are several obstacles faced both internally including human resources, facilities and infrastructure, as well as external constraints in aspects of support from related parties. The implementation process goes through planning, implementing, evaluating, constraining and following up to produce graduates who have noble, superior and competitive morals so that many are accepted in high schools.

INTRODUCTION
Madrasah is one type of educational institution in Indonesia that has the characteristics of teaching Islamic values. The education and teaching system used in madrasas is a system that combines Islamic boarding schools and public schools that apply to modern schools. The curriculum still retains religious lessons even though the proportions have been adjusted. Based on the decision of the Minister of Religion Number 90 of 2013, Article 1 paragraph 1 states that the implementation of madrasa education is an activity of implementing educational activities in educational units (RA, MI, MTs and MA) so that the education process can take place in accordance with national education goals. This provision means that the goals of education in madrasas are the same as those of national education.The role of madrasas in nation building, especially in the field of education, is very strategic considering that their presence in remote areas has made people in remote areas able to send their children to school and get educational services. In contrast, madrasa education is still considered a "second class" education because its implementation is still facing problems in managing the quality of education [1]. Madrasas are not free from the obligation to carry out the education management process as a form of implementation of Government Regulation No. 20 of 2003 concerning the National Education System, which provides directions for managing the education system in Indonesia. The policy on education management is contained in Government Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia Number 32 of 2013 which contains changes to Government Regulation Number 19 of 2005 concerning National Education Standards.In essence, education management is an operational form of the National Education Standards and the National Education System Law.
Education management standards are related to the planning, implementation and supervision of educational activities at the education unit level, district/city level, provincial level or national level in order to achieve the efficiency and effectiveness of education implementation.In detail, Kurniadin & Machali [2] explain that education management is the whole process of joint activities in the field of education by utilizing existing resources that are managed to achieve educational goals. Resources in the context of education management in the form of man (humans: teachers, students, employees), money (money: costs), materials (learning materials/tools), methods (techniques/methods), machines (machines/facilities), market (market ) and minuts (time) which is commonly referred to as "7 M".Madrasah Tsanawiyah (MTs) as formal https://ijersc.org/ educational institutions are mentioned in Government Regulation No. 17 of 2010 concerning Management and Implementation of Education. In article 1 paragraph 11 it is stated that Madrasah Tsanawiyah, hereinafter abbreviated as MTs, is a formal education unit under the guidance of the Minister of Religion which organizes general education with Islamic religious characteristics at the basic education level as a continuation of Elementary School/Madrasah Ibtidaiyah or other equivalent forms.Based on the results of interviews conducted by the author with the Head of the Madrasah Education Section, the number of Madrasah Tsanawiyah in Karawang Regency, West Java Province -Indonesia, is 60. Consisting of 6 State Tsanawiyah Madrasah and 52 Private Tsanawiyah Madrasas. Studying the condition of all Madrasah Tsanawiyah, several problems have been found, namely: In several areas in Karawang Regency, MTs is still not the community's main choice. This is a challenge for madrasas to continuously improve their quality. In some MTs there are still some teachers who teach subjects that are not in accordance with their educational background, this is a challenge for madrasas in improving the quality of teachers and the quality of learning. There are still some MTs that have not maximally applied the concept of good management in managing educational institutions.
There are still some madrasah principals who have not developed effective leadership in managing madrasah. There are still some madrasas that have not carried out the arrangement of the study space properly. This is a challenge for madrasas to always improve the quality of madrasa management.To improve the quality of education, we need a management method known as education management. The legal basis for education management is the Regulation of the Minister of National Education No. 19 of 2007 concerning Education Management Standards, and Government Regulation No. 32/2013 (National Education Standards). Madrasas need to maximize quality management not only in measuring physical quality such as school buildings or facilities that have been successfully built, but also must improve the quality of output, namely the quality of graduates produced from educational institutions. The study of the success of madrasas in improving their quality is something that must be explored in depth.It is interesting to study further about the management of Madrasah Tsanawiyah education in Karawang, whether it is able to improve the quality management of graduates through management frameworks such as Total Quality Management which according to Bounds [3] is a management system that focuses on people or customers that aims to continuously improve customer satisfaction at actual costs are continuously decreasing. In the context of madrasa management, good management according to regulations is management that is in accordance with prescribed regulations, namely in accordance with education management standards that have been set as part of the National Education Standards. Based on this, the authors are interested in conducting research to explore the Implementation of Education Management Standards in Improving the Quality of Graduates of Madrasah Tsanawiyah in Karawang, West Java.

II. METHODS
The method in this research is descriptive qualitative studies which its characteristics is naturalistic inquiry without manipulation of variables, researcher as a key instrument, inductive and deductive data analysis, participant's meaning, multiple sources of data [4,5,6]. Qualitative descriptive approach needs to be the design of choice when a straight forward description of a phenomenon is desired, it is very useful when researchers want to know, regarding events, who were involved, what was involved, and where did things take place [6].Using descriptive qualitative methods here enables the researcher to develop a level of detail from high involvement in the actual experiences as providing detailed descriptions, explanation, and interpretation of the data to be obtained from a research, it does not require numerical and statistical processing. Qualitative data analysis consists of three concurrent flows of activity, namely data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification [7,8]. The analysis follows a circular movement, creating an inductive process within the world of the data, the researchers follow the data as concepts emerge and stays open and close.The madrasas that used as locations in this research are Madrasah Tsanawiyah Al-Ahliyah Karawang Regency and Madrasah Tsanawiyah Negeri 5 Karawang, research is held in 2020 to 2021. The two locations were chosen based on the results of initial exploration, that according to the author's observations and previous research, these two madrasas are well-known private madrasah in Karawang with https://ijersc.org their achievements, both academic and non-academic achievements. However, preliminary research found that there were inconsistent conditions in implementing education management standards so that this location was considered ideal for conducting related research.

III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Education standardization has been imposed by the government on all formal education institutions, including madrasas. Therefore, the madrasah quality improvement program must be supported by all parties, including the role of education managers at the central level, regional level, school level and the teachers who carry out the learning process in the classroom. The management framework used in analyzing the management of this madrasa is management as a process consisting of planning, organizing, actuating, and controlling, as Terry [9] explains that management is a distinct process consisting of planning, organizing, actuating, and controlling, performed to determine and accomplish stated objectives by the use of human being and other resources.

Planning
In the planning function, the Madrasah Tsanawiyah studied have focused their planning on answering the eight basic aspects of madrasa services, namely the preparation of the madrasa vision and mission, planning the madrasa strategic program (Renstra), planning curriculum development programs, planning student programs, planning teacher competency development programs, planning Madrasa head work programs, planning infrastructure programs, planning programs for managing the madrasa environment and family environment. This is in line with Terry [9] who mentions planning as basic questions for planning, which in this context are the eight basic aspects of madrasah services. Then, because of the dynamics of the community, madrasas in their planning activities try to adapt to changing demands. This is in line with Johnson [10] who stated that the planning process can be considered as the vehicle for the accomplishment of system change. The consequence is that adaptation to community dynamics must occur from the time madrasa planning is made.Planning in madrasah occupies an important position for successful strategy implementation and strategy evaluation, especially since organizing, motivating, staffing and controlling activities depend on good planning. This is in line with Mondy and Premeaux who mention planning as a process of determining what should be achieved and how to make it happen in reality [11].
The implementation of this at the research site is the activity of preparing the vision and mission as well as the strategy adopted by the institution as an illustration of what it wants to achieve in the future. The Madrasah Tsanawiyah discussed have made bold, innovative, and inspiring planning steps. Policy development is in the form of structuring and reforming efforts that will be pursued through policy programs, such as encouraging and facilitating teacher creativity and innovation to produce works that are beneficial to society, improve personality competencies, and also improve the quality of student graduates. Careful planning is also carried out in the field of curriculum, the performance of the madrasa principal, facilities and infrastructure, and also the madrasa environment. This follows the notion of planning as visualize and formulating of proposed activities believed necessary to achieve desired result [9].The Madrasah Tsanawiyah discussed already have adequate management resources to carry out the preparation of the madrasa vision and mission that was mutually agreed upon after supervision. The preparation of the Renstra (Strategic Plan) has been carried out based on an objective and thorough analysis. There are also curriculum development programs that are novel, programs for students who have their own peculiarities, namely an emphasis on religious values and character building, programs for developing facilities and infrastructure, as well as structuring the madrasa environment which includes the family environment. Planning constraints faced by Madrasah Tsanawiyah included the preparation of the vision and mission and the preparation of the Strategic Plan, which was difficult to reach an agreement, although in the end it was resolved after thorough supervision and analysis.

Actuating
The existence of good teamwork will support the successful implementation of education management standards, that is, everyone has the authority over what, who and how the task is accounted for. This is as the definition of organizing as a process of determining, grouping and arranging various activities https://ijersc.org/ needed to achieve goals, placing people in each of these activities, providing the necessary tools, assigning authority which is relatively delegated to each individual who will carry out these activities [12]. However, the constraints of limited human resources in the madrasas discussed are quite difficult, namely a lot of work that should be divided according to the job description of each party, carried out by only one person, so that the organization's wheels are not smooth due to overload on only a few people.The organization and implementation of education management standards planning, in relation to HR in general, has been in accordance with David [11] that organizing HR can be seen as consisting of three sequential activities: dividing tasks into narrower jobs (job specialization), combining work to forming departments (departmentalization), and delegating authority. Implementation of education management standards in improving the quality of graduates is carried out through several programs for students, teachers and madrasah principals, facilities and infrastructure, curriculum, madrasa environment and family environment, but not all of them are running optimally due to the many obstacles faced in each program.
The key role in the actuating function at this research site is focused on the madrasah leader as the key holder of institutional policy, he must unravel the complexity of the problem of madrasa management. This is as many experts [13,14,15] have explained that leadership consists of leaders, who are led (members) and situations need each other, in which there is a relationship between constituent and leader based on mutual needs and interests, the leader regulates the distribution of the role of people in the organization while influencing them to achieve organizational goals. Madrasas have basically made programs in order to plan for education management standards, but the strategic targets through these programs have not been able to translate the vision, mission, goals, and strategies that have been prepared. This is because the planning is more focused on the physical development aspect, and does not yet have a fixed document as a reference in implementing the program in the short, medium and long term. In addition, teachers are often not involved in the planning process, even though Terry [9] explains the importance of everyone being involved in building environmental influences to achieve goals and objectives. The implication of planning that does not involve interested parties (stakeholders) is an obstacle in its implementation, due to lack of support from the parties involved.
Controlling Supervision and evaluation in the implementation of education management standards have been carried out to obtain an overview of the progress of program implementation and take an inventory of problems related to improving the quality of teachers. Evaluation is carried out starting from the input phase, process to output. The evaluation carried out is comprehensive and sustainable, including the creation of a monitoring program, self-evaluation, evaluation of curriculum development, and evaluation of the utilization of educators and education personnel, infrastructure and the madrasa environment. he institutions discussed already have an evaluation program that is objective, responsible and sustainable. The evaluation program consists of the madrasah vision and mission evaluation program, the Strategic Plan (Renstra) evaluation program, the student evaluation program, the evaluation and supervision program for teachers, the madrasa principal performance evaluation program, the infrastructure evaluation program, and a comprehensive evaluation program through madrasah accreditation. As Terry [9] mentions the supervision process as ensuring compliance with standards, the existence of these standards is evidence that the institution under study already has a madrasa management strategy in place to avoid violations. As for the implementation of the evaluation process, it turns out that it is still not optimal either by the Ministry, schools or madrasah principals. As a result, there is not really a common perception in teacher training. The implication of this dissident assessment is that it is difficult for interested parties to carry out an effective way of implementing human resource development.
The implementation of organizing in the field is that organizing madrasas is an effort to complete the plans that have been made with the organizational structure of the implementers. What has been important for madrasas to be considered in organizing is that each activity must be clear who is doing it, when it is done, and what the target is. Boone and Kurtz define organizing as the act of planning and implementing organization structure. It is the process of arranging people and physical resources to carry out plans and acommplishment organizational obtective [16]. This is also as Mondy & Premeaux explain, organization is https://ijersc.org the cooperation of two or more people in a coordinated situation to achieve the desired result. In the organization there are a number of people as managers and as members, there are structures, goals, rules and procedures. So an organization consists of several elements, namely: 1) There is a collection of people, 2) There is a division of labor / specialization in the organization, 3) Cooperating in which separate activities are coordinated, 4) There is a common goal to be achieved through joint collaboration [17].

Constrains and solutions
Obstacles experienced by madrasas to implement education management standards in improving the quality of graduates are inadequate facilities and infrastructure, low teacher competence, low student achievement, less than optimal role of madrasah principals, curriculum development that has not been maximized, madrasa environment that is not conducive, and family environment which is not harmonious. Lack of leadership support and lack of association involvement in coaching, has implications for low networks to gain access to pedagogic and professional competence development. In addition, the lack of guidance carried out by senior teachers to their juniors has implications for the lack of an inner relationship between teachers, and more educational and training opportunities are taken by institutions from outside the school.Efforts to improve the implementation of management standards have been carried out through individual and institutional efforts. That is by realizing the vision, mission and strategic plan, implementing follow-up actions in the curriculum, improving teacher competence and welfare, optimizing the role of madrasah principals, optimizing advice and infrastructure, creating a conducive madrasa environment, and forming a harmonious family environment.
Solutions to overcome graduate quality problems are carried out by increasing students' learning motivation, increasing the competence of teachers and madrasah principals, increasing research capacity, increasing teacher access with associations, and maximizing the planning carried out by schools and teachers by providing education and internal training that involves senior teachers as instructors and presenters. The addition of infrastructure, curriculum development, structuring the madrasa environment and increasing parental participation in madrasa programs as well as parenting programs for parents were also held to form a comfortable family environment for students. This follows Creech who suggests that there are five important pillars for the success of TQM. The relationship between these pillars is described as follows: The product is the focal point for the organization's goals and achievements. Quality in products cannot exist without quality in processes. Quality in processes is impossible without proper organization. The right organization is meaningless without adequate leaders. A strong, bottom-up commitment is a pillar of support for all others. Each pillar depends on the other four pillars and if one is weak by itself the others are also weak [17].It appears that the madrasas in research sites have carried out the education management process as other researchers [18] say that education management is an arrangement of educational fields carried out through planning, organizing, staffing, coaching, coordinating, monitoring, evaluating and reporting activities systematically to achieve quality education goals.

Follow-ups
Several follow-up actions have been planned by both institutions with the main focus on establishing better synergies between stakeholders. Planning becomes a reference in implementing the program in the short, medium and long term, where teachers will be involved in the planning process. There needs to be a quick consensus in the preparation of the vision, mission and strategic plan to overcome the problem of the low competence of teachers. There needs to be an increase in infrastructure, capacity building, increased access, budget support, in overcoming infrastructure problems, namely infrastructure addition and repair, as well as management and arrangement of the madrasa environment which also involves the role of parents as the first environment for students.The organization and implementation of management standards need to be structured in a mindset to form and mobilize good teamwork where everyone has the authority over what, who and how the task is accounted for. Follow-up programs as a solution to overcome problems in the implementation of education management standards are increasing student learning motivation, increasing the competence of teachers and madrasah principals, increasing research capacity, and increasing teacher access with associations and maximizing planning carried out by schools and teachers, by providing internal education and training involving senior teachers as instructors and resource persons.The addition of


Group Guidance Based on Local Strength to Improve the Competence of Counselors

The measurement of counselor competency improvement through group guidance training is the aim of this study. Types of qualitative research with data collection techniques are interviews, open questionnaires, and literature studies. The research sample was 67 school counselors who were obtained using a purposive non-random sampling technique. The data analysis technique used is triangulation. The results showed usefulness and an increase in academic and professional competence in providing group guidance services based on local strengths by 97.68%. Forms of local strength in games, ludruk, parikan jula juli, and traditional games can be included in selecting topics, interlude activities, and service techniques. This research can also contribute to the innovation of group guidance services, especially in helping to facilitate the development of students towards independence.

INTRODUCTION
The complete figure of the counselor's competence consists of academic competence and professional competence. Academic competence emphasizes two abilities: mastering the theoretical repertoire of guidance and counseling and understanding the counselee to be served. Increasing the competence of counselors is not easy because it is constrained by problems in the field, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. On the other hand, as part of the three obligations of higher education, the academic community must be sensitive to problems in society and do community service. The community referred to in this case is school counselors and junior high school students.
One of the services that cannot run well is the group guidance service, even though the service has extraordinary benefits. The description of group guidance services is important to support development, especially career development, social development, and increasing self-awareness [1].
The purpose and function of group guidance services are so that each member can speak in front of many people; able to express opinions, ideas, suggestions, responses, feelings to many people; learn to respect the opinions of others; is responsible for the opinions expressed; able to control oneself and restrain emotions (negative psychological turmoil); can tolerate; become familiar with each other, and discuss common problems or topics that are felt or are of common interest [2]. In addition, even if group guidance services can be implemented, the implementation is still standard and requires innovations, one of which is through group guidance services by utilizing local strengths.
The needs assessment results of 138 students in Surabaya, six school counselors in Surabaya need group guidance services by utilizing local strengths in delivering messages. The service is carried out by providing concrete actions in the form of soft skill development in the form of the ability to provide group guidance services by utilizing local strengths, namely by utilizing the media of Jula-Juli Suroboyoan and Parikan. Regarding Jula-Juli, the team was not trained. However, the team only used media that came from existing YouTube. The focus of this research is to reveal the benefits of local strength-based group guidance training for junior high school counselors, identify the presence or absence of new knowledge, attitudes and skills after training, and analyze the placement of local strengths in group guidance.

METHODS
This type of research is qualitative research. Qualitative research is used to examine the condition of natural objects, where the researcher is the key instrument. Data collection techniques used are interviews, questionnaires, and literature studies. The interview consisted of three main questions: the usefulness of the training, new knowledge, attitudes, and skills acquired, and how to incorporate local strengths in group guidance. While the open questionnaire contains seven items of questions, including the types of local strengths selected, the application of local strengths, the stages of group guidance carried out, new things that can be obtained after training, the benefits of training, and suggestions for further training.
For literature studies, there are two sources that are used as references, [2] and [3]. This book is used to reveal the nature of group guidance in terms of understanding, objectives, benefits, stages of group guidance. This article explores the effectiveness of local wisdom-based guidance and counseling and the types of local wisdom applied in guidance and counseling.
The sample of this study was 67 counselors for junior high schools in Surabaya, which were taken using a purposive non-random sampling technique. In comparison, the data analysis technique uses data triangulation. Triangulation is the most commonly used method for increasing data validity in qualitative research.
There are four kinds of triangulation techniques, namely (1) data/source triangulation, (2) investigator triangulation, (3) methodological triangulation, and (4) theoretical triangulation. This triangulation is a technique based on a phenomenological mindset that is multi-perspective. This means that to draw solid conclusions, it is necessary not only from one point of view. In this study, data were obtained from unstructured interviews, open questionnaires, and literature studies. The data sources are junior high school students in Surabaya, school counselors, and sociology lecturers. Data analysis was carried out with the following steps: (a) Data reduction, (b) Data display or data presentation (c) Data Verification (Withdrawal of Conclusions).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This training uses an experiential learning model. This intervention strategy consists of four stages, namely: concrete experience, reflection, conceptualization/abstract thinking, and application [4]. A brief explanation is as follows:

a. Real Experience Stage
The real experience stage is carried out by inviting trainees to carry out group guidance as they usually do.

b. Reflective/Reflective Observation Stage
The stages of reflection observation are obtained through observation activities carried out by research subjects on the group guidance they do and its implications for achieving service goals.

c. Conceptualization Stage
The conceptualization stage is to understand group guidance with steps that combine local strengths in group guidance. The stages of group guidance consist of 4 stages, namely the formation stage, the transition stage, the activity stage, and the termination stage.

d. Implementation Stage
The active experimentation stage provides school counselors with opportunities to apply the material obtained in training in real situations. Participants are given the task of recording the situation they experienced previously with the formats that will be provided. Several studies show the success of experiential learning.
Although experiential learning has weaknesses, this approach also has advantages [5]. Examples of research on the effectiveness of experiential learning in improving academic performance, cognitive skills, and social skills are Leal-Rodriguez, Antonio L., and Albort-Morant [6], and Voukelatou [7]. The above strategy is applied to train the ability of school counselors ability to provide local strength-based group guidance services.
The results of interviews with school counselors about the usefulness of training as much as 97.68% are that school counselors feel the benefits of training new knowledge, attitudes, and skills and incorporating local strengths in group guidance. The results of the questionnaire to school counselors obtained data as listed in table 1.
The results of the interview above show that counselors feel the benefits of group guidance training, have increased academic competence in mastering the theoretical repertoire of local strength-based group guidance, and have increased professional competence in terms of practicing group guidance by incorporating local elements through training.

Performed regular
The way to include local strengths in group guidance is by choosing topics that contain local strengths, at the time of introduction using local strengths, through interlude activities, and during the application of traditional game techniques-the result of literature studies presented in Table 2.
Based on the literature review in Table 2, the types of guidance and counseling services that can be applied to facilitate student development include types of services that fall into pattern 17 or can also use a comprehensive guidance and counseling approach. This study can be used as a guide to improving academic competence in understanding the theoretical repertoire of guidance and counseling, especially the types of services that can be applied to facilitate student development. Several studies show that training can increase the competence of counselors through reality counseling training [8] [9]. In addition, group guidance training has also been proven to improve academic competence and professional competence, as research on the effectiveness of group guidance in improving the competence of prospective counselors [10] and the effectiveness of group guidance in building religious character and other studies [12].

CONCLUSION
The results showed an increase in academic competence and professional competence in group guidance services by incorporating local elements through training. The way to include local strengths in group guidance is by choosing topics that contain local strengths, at the time of introduction using local strengths, through interlude activities, and during the application of traditional game techniques. This study also revealed that there were innovations in providing group guidance services. The weakness of this study was the treatment design and the generality of the local strengths being trained. For this reason, further research can be applied to experimental type research with a specialization on the type of local strength that is applied.


Social Communication Apprehension, Self-Esteem and Facebook Addiction Among University Students in Uganda

This study aimed at furthering the research on the relationship between social communication apprehension, self-esteem and Facebook addiction. To measure the three variables, a questionnaire comprised of The Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24), The Rosenberg SelfEsteem Scale (RES), and The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) was administered to 654 university students in Uganda. Pearson’s correlation analysis and multiple linear regression coefficient analysis were carried out. A positive significant relationship between communication apprehension and Facebook addiction and a negative significant relationship between self-esteem and Facebook addiction were reported. Findings further revealed that self-esteem and communication apprehension significantly predicted Facebook addiction.

INTRODUCTION
Social network sites can be defined as "web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system" (Boyd & Ellison, 2007, p. 211). Social Network Sites (SNSs) allow users the opportunity to carry out different activities such as sending messages, sharing pictures, videos, and texts, connecting with friends, following their favorite public figures amongst many other things (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Rohani and Hock (2010, p. 42) probably described it best, when they stated that "Social networking services offer friends a space where they can maintain their relationships, chat with each other and share information. Moreover, they offer the opportunity to build new relationships through existing friends." Facebook is arguably the most popular and widely used social networking site, boasting of over 2.85 billion monthly active users in the world (Statista, 2021) and yet, engagement continues to grow. Uganda has about According to Armstrong and Rubin (1989) people who have some level of communication apprehension generally prefer to make use of a medium instead of communicating face-to-face. Findings by these scholars show that people who preferred talking on radio programs do not like interacting face-to-face and those same people who talk on radio programs also spend a lot of time listening to the radio. A different study by Scott and Rockwell (1997) found out that people who have communication apprehension preferred to communicate through the use of pagers, cell phones and other media that do not require in-person interactions. In a more recent study, Burke et al. (2010) found out that people that feel lonely and alone tend to make use of social networking sites more frequently. Similarly, another study by McCord et al. (2014) found that people with high levels of social anxiety tend to make use of social media more frequently than those with lower levels of social anxiety.

/ 13
Similarly, a study by Punyanunt-Carter et al. (2018) that sought to understand the connection between college students' use of social media and communication apprehension, showed that for college students social media communication apprehension was significantly related to pathological social media usage. They explained that people that have a difficulty communicating in real life might gravitate towards social media more. In a similar vein and more recently, a study by Gadekar and Ang (2020) showed that introverts, who generally suffer from communication apprehension, are more likely to engage their social media followers more and are generally more likely to make use of social media for socializing and communication.
From the foregoing, it is clear that social communication anxiety can lead to more social media usage due to the anonymity the social media environment provides and allows. In view of this, the researchers propose the following hypothesis: H1: There is a difference in the frequency of social media usage among those who have high levels of communication apprehension and those with low levels or no communication apprehension.
Studies on self-esteem and the use of social media have also been a common area of research in recent times. Boyd and Ellison (2007) surmised in their studies on social media usage that the use of personal profiles on Facebook and other social media sites that allow users to view, scrutinize, pass judgement, and give feedback makes people feel more connected and can also help them build new relationships. The opinions of people on social media can have a very significant effect on the self-esteem of individuals on the receiving end of such comments. Heatherton and Polivy (1991) suggested in their work that self-esteem can be stable or mercurial in nature. What this means is that a high self-esteem can take time to develop in others and for some their level of self-esteem can fluctuate depending on daily events occurring in their lives. Therefore, negative feedback on social media has the tendency of reducing the self-esteem of social media users while positive feedback can have the opposite effect (Valkenburg, 2017). Nyagah et al. (2015), as cited in Muqaddas et al. (2017), found out that social media gives its users a sense of identity and unmatched freedom to be whoever they want to be. They go on to explain that this freedom and identity made possible by social media also help boost confidence levels of their users. An earlier study also alluded to this fact stating that social media provides an avenue for shy and introverted individuals to develop some social capital because it reduces the restrictions involved in face-to-face communication .
Affiliation or feeling of belongingness is one of the major motivators for social interactions according to Schachter (1959). To achieve this feeling of belonging to a social group, class or status, people often find themselves comparing themselves with others. These feelings of affiliation and belongingness are usually triggered on social networking sites (Muqaddas et al., 2017). Muqaddas et al. (2017) go on to explain that social networking sites make a lot of people self-evaluate and make social comparisons with others on the networks based on beauty, popularity, wealth, social class and many more, which may have a negative effect on their self-esteem. Feinstein et al. (2013) surmised in their study that there is a significant relationship between frequent use of Facebook and increase in depression and reduction in prosperity. They interpreted this as meaning that those who spend a lot of time on Facebook are significantly more likely to have higher levels of depression and lower levels of prosperity than their colleagues who spend less time on Facebook. This finding was supported by those of Kross et al. (2013) who found out that although people come on Facebook to escape loneliness, they almost always end up feeling less satisfied with their lives. This can perhaps be attributed to the fact that a lot of people who make use of social media have the erroneous belief that others are living significantly healthier and better lives than themselves (Chou & Edge, 2012). These assumptions about the quality of life of other members of a social network may in certain cases result in depression, psychotic behavior and low self-esteem (Pantic, 2014). Similarly, studies by Hawi and Samaha (2016), Kose and Dogan (2019), and Purnama et al. (2021) showed a negative correlation between social media usage and self-esteem.
However, not all studies found a negative effect of social media usage on self-esteem. Valkenburg et al. (2006) explained that the internet is more to blame for lower self-esteem and not necessarily social media. However, this submission is a bit dated now, considering the fact that as at the time of their study, social 5 / 13 media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and even YouTube were not fully developed at the time and those that existed, did not have the influence that social media has today. A more recent study by Tazghini and Siedlecki (2013) argued that Facebook is beneficial to people with low self-esteem as it allows them more social capital than those with high self-esteem. The implication is that those with low self-esteem now have an opportunity to develop a social life conveniently and can even help in improving their self-esteem in the long run, while those with already high self-esteem might not see a significant change in their social capital since they already have a great social life outside of social media.
From the foregoing, it is clear that the majority of studies have focused on the effect of social media usage on self-esteem, while there is an obvious dearth of literature on the effect of self-esteem on social media usage. Based on this premise, the researchers propose the following hypotheses: H2: There is a significant relationship between self-esteem and Facebook addiction.

H3:
Those with low self-esteem are significantly more likely to be addicted to social media than those with high self-esteem.
Finally, based on the literature reviewed, a few studies have been carried out that considered a combination of social communication apprehension and low self-esteem as a predictor of Facebook addiction. It is therefore based on this, that the following hypothesis was developed: H4: Social communication apprehension and self-esteem is a predictor to Facebook addiction.

Research Approach
This study made use of quantitative research approach that involved the distribution of questionnaires to a sample of the study population. Quantitative research, according to Creswell (2003) can be used to find out the relationships between variables within a particular study. Since this study seeks to explain the relationship between social communication apprehension, self-esteem and Facebook addiction with data that was collected quantitatively, then this approach is the most appropriate.

Participants
This study involved students from two universities in Uganda-Kampala International University (KIU) and Kyambogo University (KYU). According to 4icu's website, KIU is the best private university in the East Africa and ranks among the top 50 universities on the African continent. Similarly, Kyambogo university is the 3 rd best university in Uganda and the 2 nd best public university in the country. KIU attracts a lot of international students and lecturers while KYU attracts mostly local staff and students. These institutions were chosen because they are situated in Kampala (the capital city of Uganda) where there is an easy access to quality internet. Also, according to Facebook analytics page, over 90% of Facebook users are situated in Kampala, therefore, it was only ideal that institutions based in Kampala were selected for this study. Secondly, KIU is a multicultural and highly diverse institution and Kyambogo is highly localized (catering mostly to Ugandans), therefore, it is assumed that between these two schools, this study should be able to get the feedback from a rich and heterogeneous audience which should strengthen the results of the study. In total, 654 students participated in this study, 53% were male and 47% were female. Their ages ranged from 18-34 years of age, with a mean age of 22.5 years. The average age was 23 and 22.3 years of the males and females, respectively.

Measures
This study aimed to measure three variables, namely; social communication apprehension, self-esteem, and Facebook addiction. To do this, the researchers opted to make use of a questionnaire that combines The Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24), The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RES), and The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS). To reduce the chances of common method bias from coming up in this study, the researchers opted to ensure that the questions developed for the three variables in this 6 / 13 study were obtained from different sources. The items of the questionnaire were carefully crafted to ensure that the questions were contextualized to the study population and therefore easy to understand, also vagueness and ambiguities were completely removed from the questionnaire. This ensured that the respondents could properly understand and answer the questions asked. Finally, an exploratory factor analysis was carried out on the questionnaire to ensure that no substantial amount of variance is present in the questionnaire. By carrying out this test, all questions that were not necessarily needed to achieve the study objectives and test the hypotheses were removed.
The Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) is an instrument that is widely used and accepted to measure communication apprehension. The instrument is made up of 24 questions and is reliable (alpha>.90) and has a high level of predictability (predictive validity). The PRSA makes it possible to collect sub-scores for public speaking, dyadic interaction, large groups and small groups. In this study, the researchers took sub-scores for all different categories when seeking to measure communication apprehension among the participants of this study.
To measure self-esteem, the researchers made use of The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RES). This scale is widely used to measure self-esteem for the purpose of research. The instrument consists of 10 questions to which respondents are expected to answer using a 4-point Likert scale with 1 being strongly agree and 4 being strongly disagree. While scores less than 15/30 reflect a low level of self-esteem, scores above 15/30 reflect a high level of self-esteem.
Finally, to measure Facebook addiction, the researchers made use of The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) developed by Andreassen et al. (2012) and used by da Veiga et al. (2019). The scale has six items that measure the level of Facebook addiction via self-reporting. Each item on the scale corresponds to one of six components of addiction as proposed by Griffiths (2005). These components include, mood modification, withdrawal symptoms, conflict, tolerance, salience, and relapse. Respondents are expected to state how frequently they have experienced any of these symptoms in the last 12 months and score their response on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being very rarely to 5 being very frequently. The overall score ranges from 6 to 30 and the higher the score, the more addicted the respondent is to Facebook and vice versa (Andreassen et al., 2012). It has also been suggested that a score of 3 or more for at least 4 of the 6 items in the instrument is a strong indication of Facebook addiction. In total, the questionnaire used in this study had 40 Likert scale questions (or statements).

Procedure
To ensure that the questionnaires were equitably distributed, the researchers made use of stratified random sampling. The sample population was sub-divided into different strata to include different faculties in each institution and then students from each faculty were randomly selected to fill the questionnaire. This way every faculty is properly represented in the study and thus the results are expected to be more valid. The breakdown of the distribution is shown in Table 1.

PRESENTATION OF DATA AND FINDINGS
To test the hypotheses of this study, Pearson's correlation analysis and multiple linear regression coefficient analysis were carried out.
Before running the Pearson's correlation and multiple regression analysis, the researcher ensured that all assumptions were met. The first assumption is that the variables been studied should be measured at the interval or ratio level, implying that they should be continuous. Although this study made use of Likert scale, the scales were treated as continuous because each category had a defined value. The second assumption was that there should be a linear relationship and be normally distributed, which the analysis showed. The third assumption was that there should not be any outliers. To ensure that the data did not have any outlier, Grubb's test was carried out to check that there were no outliers.
The result of the test showed that there were no significant outliers. Furthermore, independence of observations was also ensured by running a Durbin-Watson test which showed a result of d=2.1 which indicates that autocorrelation is not present.
Another assumption that needs to be met before a multiple linear regression can be run is that the data needs to show homoscedasticity which is when the error variances are the same for all combinations of independent and moderator variables. To check for this, a test of scatterplot was conducted to show the regression standardized residual for the dependent and independent variables.
The scatterplot in Figure 1 shows the standardized values the model for the data will predict, against the standardized residuals obtained. As the predicted values increase (on the x-axis), the variation should be similar. The scatterplot above shows that this assumption has not been violated.
The final assumption tested was that the data must not show multi-collinearity. To test for multi-collinearity, the researchers ran the regression test in SPSS and then checked the VIF value. If the VIF value is between 1 and 10, then it can be deduced that there is no multi-collinearity. The result of the test run, showed a VIF of 1.056, meaning that there is no multi-collinearity. Therefore, this assumption was also met.
Once all the assumptions were met, the analysis was carried out. The results of the analysis, based on the hypotheses of this study, are presented.    Table 4 shows the coefficients and the unique contribution of all the predictor variables on the dependent variable. There was a negative significant relationship (t=-5.752, β= -.211, p<.001) between self-esteem and Facebook addiction. This would mean that people with low self-esteem tend to spend more time on social media. In other words, those with low self-esteem are significantly more likely to be addicted to social media than those with high self-esteem.
Communication apprehension had a significant positive relationship (t=8.630, β=.317, p<.001) with Facebook addiction, suggesting that individuals with higher social media use are more likely to have high communication apprehension and vice versa.

H1:
There is a difference in the frequency of social media usage among those who have high levels of communication apprehension and those with low levels or no communication apprehension.
The results in Table 2 show a positive significant relationship between communication apprehension and Facebook addiction, implying that individuals with high levels of communication apprehension are also more likely to be addicted to social media than those with lower levels of communication apprehension. Therefore, it can be concluded that H1 is accepted.
The findings support those of Armstrong and Rubin (1989) who found out that people who have some level of communication apprehension generally prefer to make use of a medium instead of communicating faceto-face. Although Armstrong and Rubin's (1989) study was carried out long before social media and therefore   was not in fact studying communication apprehension and Facebook addiction, the study did show that people with a higher level of communication apprehension generally prefer to make use of mediated communication, which social media is a form of. It can therefore be surmised that people with high levels of communication apprehension will prefer to communicate through a medium that allows them to communicate from a distance without having to physically be present. The findings of this study support a more recent study by McCord et al. (2014) that looks at the relationship between social anxiety and social media apprehension. The findings of their study showed that people with high levels of social anxiety tend to make use of social media frequently.
Similarly, the findings of this study also support previous research by Ellison et al. (2007), Mugaddas et al. (2017), and Nyagah et al. (2015 who all posit that social media provides an escape for people and helps boost their confidence levels, since it provides a platform for shy and introverted individuals to develop some social capital or improve on their social interactions as the restrictions involved in face-to-face communication are absent.
H2: There is a significant relationship between self-esteem and Facebook addiction.

H3:
Those with low self-esteem are significantly more likely to be addicted to social media than those with high self-esteem. Table 4 also shows a significant relationship between self-esteem and Facebook addiction. The implication is that people with low self-esteem tend to be more addicted to Facebook than those with high levels of selfesteem. Based on the foregoing, it can be concluded that H2 is also accepted.
Also, the findings showed that people with low self-esteem tend to spend more time on social media. In other words, those with low self-esteem are significantly more likely to be addicted to social media than those with high self-esteem. Based on the foregoing, it can also be deduced that H3 is accepted.
The findings of this study support those of Hawi and Samaha (2016), Kose and Dogan (2019), and Purnama et al. (2021) who all concluded that there is a negative relationship between social media usage and selfesteem. Their studies explained that Facebook addiction can be predicated by low-self-esteem and at the same time, low self-esteem can also lead to Facebook addiction. Pantic (2014) in a similar submission showed that social media usage can lead to depression, psychotic behavior and low self-esteem. It is worth noting, that these negative effects were not observed in the study nor self-reported among the participants of the study. This however leaves room for more studies on this phenomenon especially considering the recent efforts by social media companies to reduce hate speech, online bullying, and other efforts to ensure that the platform is as welcoming to all as possible. The current study however showed a relationship between both variables but did not explore the nature of this relationship.
H4: Social communication apprehension and self-esteem is a predictor to Facebook addiction.
Finally, the findings of this study showed that self-esteem and communication apprehension significantly predicted Facebook addiction. It is concluded in this study that people with low levels of self-esteem and high levels of communication apprehension are significantly more likely to become addicted to social media than people with just one of these traits. To clarify, someone that has both traits (low self-esteem and high communication apprehension) are more likely to become addicted to social media than someone with a moderate to high self-esteem and high level of communication apprehension. Therefore, H4 is accepted.
The findings of this study support the "the poor gets richer' hypothesis or the compensation effect, which suggests that people who are socially inept or awkward are more likely to spend a lot of time online, trying to compensate for their offline failings. By extension, "the rich gets richer" or the social enhancement effect is also supported by the findings of this study. The evidence, as reflected in the findings of this study, shows that people that already do very well in terms of face-to-face social interactions also tend to do well in online environments, while individuals that are not particularly adept at offline socializations tend to become addicted to the online environment as a way to compensate, thereby lending credence to "the rich gets richer and the poor gets richer hypothesis".

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The limitations of this study presented itself in two ways, methodological limitations, and limitations in terms of previous studies seeking to identify the relationship between social communication apprehension, selfesteem and Facebook usage.
In terms of methodological limitations, the study could have benefitted from examining other social media platforms like YouTube and Twitter since they are also significantly popular among Ugandans. However, Facebook was selected because user data was readily available and easily accessible. Furthermore, the study population was limited to just university students, excluding a large portion of the youth population that also access and make use of social media in Uganda. This decision was as a result of the pandemic which seriously restricted movement since 2020 and therefore made interactions outside campuses much more difficult. Also, this study sought to find out the relationship between self-esteem and Facebook usage but failed to explore the nature of this relationship.
Also, very little had been done on the subject area, especially when considering the interactions and relationships between the three different variables considered in this study. While the issue of communication apprehension and social media usage has been well discussed in scholarship, very little has been done on the relationship between self-esteem, social media usage and communication apprehension. This study is arguable one of the first to address this phenomenon from this perspective.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This study has expanded research into the relationship between social communication apprehension and Facebook addiction. At a time when social media has completely changed the world all around us and has made it become a truly 'global village', it is important to understand how different people fit into this new social media landscape and how character traits or flaws affect how social media is used. In the case of this study, two different character traits were considered: social communication apprehension and self-esteem. The findings showed that both these traits serve as significant predictors of the frequency of social media usage or Facebook addiction. It is however worth noting that this study limited itself to university students and individuals of university school age, therefore a different study focusing on high school students, since they are at their most impressionable age, can be carried out. Similarly, a study that looks at the long-term effect of social media usage and its capability to change behavior (for instance make an introvert less introverted by boosting their self-confidence) will also help shed light on the effect of social media usage on behavior.
This study sought to find out if there is a difference in the frequency of social media usage among those who have a high level of communication apprehension and those with no communication apprehension. The findings showed that indeed there is a difference and that those with a higher level of communication apprehension have a higher tendency or likelihood to be addicted to social media usage. The reason for this can be attributed to the fact that such individuals want to compensate for their lack of social capital in the offline world.
In a similar vein, it was determined that individuals with low self-esteem are significantly more likely to frequently make use of social media than those with a higher level of self-esteem. Low self-esteem usually manifests through different behavioral traits, such as, social awkwardness, quietness, or even bullying. To make up for their 'shortcomings', those individuals may turn to social media to better express themselves. Future studies can take a further look at this phenomenon.
Finally, before embarking on this study, it was observed that there is a dearth of literature on the phenomenon studied, despite the fact that Africa is one of the fastest adopters of social media with Nigeria alone having more than 50 million social media users. So, it is a surprise that very little research has been carried out that looks at the social media and communication apprehension in Africa. By embarking on this study, the researchers have expanded the discourse on social communication apprehension and social media usage, to include an African perspective.