Essay: Motivation of teachers

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Academic Frame of Reference
The word motivation is believed to have had its origins in the Latin word motivus which means ‘a moving cause’ . Motivation is defined as the forces which act on a person externally as well as internally from within the person to initiate a certain behaviour. It can also be described as the forces that account for the arousal, selection, direction, and continuation of a certain behavior (Psychology Applied to Teaching: Biehler and Snowman). It is widely posited that all conscious acts of human behavior requires some type of motivation.
Motivation is not an individual trait and it is not something that some people have while others do not. It is generally a function of an individual’s interaction with his or her environment. So while some people may be motivated to work others might be motivated to do something else . This does not mean that people who are not motivated to work are lazy or ‘ demotivated ’ .
There are essentially three approaches to the study of motivation : humanistic approach , cognitive approach and behavioural approach.
a. The Behavioral approach : The behavioural approach has its core the concepts of
classical conditioning and operant conditioning .
b. The Cognitive Approach : The cognitive approach to motivation is of the view that
human behavior is influenced by individuals’ perception of things .
c. The Humanistic approach : The Humanistic view of motivation posits that people are
motivated to satisfy deficiency needs when those needs are unmet.
1.2 Direction and significance of the present study
21st century is widely described as the century of knowledge driven economies . In knowledge driven economies the tool and techniques of human motivation have developed strategic dimensions which require specialized processes and systems designs to optimize performance. This is especially true in human resource driven, knowledge centric organizations like schools. Literature over the years have posited on the importance of motivated teachers and their influence on the efficacy of the teaching-learning process in a school and thus on the overall success of the school system . Brumback (1986) and Maehr (1984) had studied teachers’ motivation and job satisfaction and the influence of such motivation on the results of the students. It was found in both the studies that motivated teachers resulted in better student performance . Hence the pursuit to build better schools which can optimize student performance and efficacy of the school themselves should begin with an initiative to study the factors that motivate teachers to give their best at work every day .
Most of the previous studies on the motivation of teachers motivation were uni-dimensional and focused on only one factor of influence or at the most one set of factors. Thus a multidimensional study of factors which is comprehensive and which also entails the categorization and analysis of the influences is important . It is also necessary that a study which includes a systems approach to workplace motivation of teachers is conducted , such an approach was missing in the previous studies . This study also seeks to introduce a systems approach to teachers’ workplace motivation in its analysis and approach . It is in these areas that the present study seeks to add to the existing body of knowledge on the subject.
While it is widely recognized that the motivation of teachers is important for successful outcomes of the teach-learning process , schools do not have a comprehensive systemic framework of all the factors that affect the motivation of school teachers and how school processes and systems can be planned and designed to optimize and maintain the motivation levels of school teachers thus leading to better student and school performance . This study seeks to address this problem .
1.3 Objectives of the study
1. To identify the factors which are correlated to the motivation of school teachers.
2. To empirically study and analyze the correlation of each factor on the motivation of
school teachers.
3. To classify and group factors on the basis of their correlation to the motivation of
school teachers.
4. To sub-divide each factor into a number of sub-factors which constitute the factor .
5. To empirically study and analyze the correlation of each sub factor on the respective
factor.
6. To empirically study and analyze the correlation of each sub-factor on the overall
motivation of school teachers.
7. To apply a systems approach to organizational motivation and treat each factor
influencing teacher motivation as a system consisting of sub factors as sub-systems.
8. To design a motivational system consisting of the factors and sub factors with a
purpose to create an optimal motivational environment for teachers to work in.
9. To design a set of school processes to optimize and maintain teachers’ motivation in
schools .
1.4 Delimitation of scope and key assumptions
This study deals with the factors that affect motivation of school teachers in general and does not attempt to measure or study the current motivational levels of individual teachers or groups of teachers . The study is limited by a sample size of 111 . Though considered adequate a higher sample size could be better. The researcher was constrained by time and resources in view of the fact that fairly long questionnaires were used for the study to gain valuable detailed insights into the factors that influenced teachers’ motivation at work. The study was restricted to North Bengal mainly in the districts of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri. A wider study on a national level was beyond the means of the researcher but would have helped further. The language of the questionnaire that was administered was English . Since the researcher personally administered the questionnaire he could help with the translations , queries and helped clear any doubt but questionnaires in regional languages can help elicit better responses .
The key assumptions of the study related to the following:-
• That the responses were spontaneous , unbiased , honest and not frivolous
• That the respondents understood the questions
• That the respondents trusted the word of confidentiality given by the researcher
• That the Likert-type scale data could be treated as continuous and subjected to parametric statistical analysis .
1.5 Review of related literature : Introduction
The review of literature seeks to explore the relevant areas which dominate the topic of study. Behavioural scientists have propounded motivation as the primary cause for certain human behaviour. More than a century and a half of painstaking research has gone into studying human motivation and its various aspects , over this period studies have changed course and direction .The question that was seemingly manifest in the early studies on motivation was : ‘What are the aspects of cognition, affect and behaviour that benefit most from a motivational analysis ? ’( Gollwitzer and Oettingen 2001 ) . The proponents of the classical learning theory like Hull (1943) stressed that the process of motivation does not guide or control certain behaviour but encourages inborn, natural and at times learned dispositions. It has also been the subject of motivational researchers like Aitkinson ( 1957) and McClelland ( 1955) to study as to whether thoughts and feelings which may have been guided by definitive purposes and goals influence both the choices of individuals as also the efforts that individuals make towards the accomplishment of such choices.
A wide range of studies have been conducted on the aspect of human needs ,their fulfillment and the subsequent influence on motivation. Early learning theorists propounded a very generalized concept of need which was bereft of a specific content. Personality Psychologists however had a different approach to the concept of need: they brought in an aspect of content to the need. McDougall (1932), Murray ( 1938 ) , and perhaps the most well known study conducted by Maslow ( 1954) dwelt into the aspect of motivation and needs. Herzberg et al (1959) propounded their contentious two factor theory which has been the subject of many further research studies. While these researches proved useful in describing motivation and defining the different constructs that influence human need they did not provide instruments to assess those needs. Some questions like what triggers some needs in certain situations and why at other times these needs are switched off were left unanswered. Later researchers like McClelland ( 1985 ) and Baumeister and Leary ( 1995) studied possible answers to these questions.
Over the years the approach of researchers on human motivation has seen a paradigm shift. Earlier theorists described humans as ‘prototypical’ (Gollwitzer and Oettingen 2001) beings who were like machines and could only react to internal or external situations without any conscious thoughts or reflections. The assumption was that humans could be motivated by pushing the right switch. Theories of Hull (1943) , Lewin (1926) and even psychoanalytic theories of Freud were prototypical in nature . Later researchers however shifted their approach and described humans as thinking, knowing creatures who would take decisions based on their judgments and knowledge . Theories like the expectancy value theory (Atkinson 1957) suggest that human beings take rational and well thought decisions based on their knowledge of the probability of attaining their goals and the expected value of such goals. Attribution theory (Weiner 1980, 1992) proposes that people are motivated by a positive outcome wherein they are able to feel good about themselves. Bandura (1997) proposed the self-efficacy theory according to which a person’s belief in his or her self-efficacy or potential to succeed determines how he or she behaves, feels or thinks. These later theories thus shift from the earlier approach of describing humans as mechanical prototypes incapable of thought and judgment to that of a thinking, knowing , rational being.
The present researches in motivation not only study the processes and variables that determine the goals of individuals they also study the factors that determine the implementation of such goals. Thus the earlier studies are taken a step forward and a new concept of humans as ‘flexible strategists’ (Gollwitzer and Oettingen 2001) is brought forth. This is however a twofold process: in the first when a person chooses a goal he or she is the quintessential knowing and rational person that the earlier researchers postulated, however when the implementation stage comes people take on strategic roles ( Gollwitzer 1990) . Higgins (1997) postulated the Regularity Focus Theory according to which there are two independent self regulatory orientations in a person : prevention and promotion. The relatively recent studies in self regulation have its echoes in the early studies of the mentalists like James ( 1890) who postulated that self regulation involved either the strengthening of a weak resolve to carry out action that was desired or to weaken a strong resolve to carry out an action that was undesirable or unwarranted. German psychologists like Lewin ( 1926) also worked on the willful control of behaviour and their works find their echoes in the modern researches on motivation which draw distinctions between the motivational approaches to the choice of goals and the volitional approaches to the implementation of such goals.( (Gollwitzer and Oettingen 2001).
Literature related to the motivation of teachers show two distinct categories or segments. The first category belongs to studies which dealt with the association of the motivation and job satisfaction of teachers to the achievements of students. In other words these research initiatives wanted to answer a basic question : Do the motivated teachers increase student achievement levels ? Skinner ( 1993 ) found that teacher involvement in the classroom (which can be a function of teacher’s motivation to work) is an important predictor of the student’s motivation in the classroom. Maehr (1984) had postulated that highly motivated teachers would have highly improved performance because research had shown that performance is linked to motivation. Ames and Ames ( 1984) defined three motivational systems: ability-evaluative, task mastery, and moral responsibility which had a value orientation which was mutually shared by students and teachers . Thus the motivation of students and teachers were postulated to be intrinsically linked to each other.
A large number of studies were conducted to identify the factors which motivate teachers . Sergiovanni (1967) found that teachers are most satisfied when they succeed in reaching out to students and affecting their lives and in turn earning recognition, pride , a sense of responsibility and achievement. Lortie (1975) postulated that teachers are motivated when students excel . Menlow and Low (1988) conducted a major study which was spread across five countries and they came to the conclusion that teachers are most motivated when students understand what they are taught and do well.
Lawler and Hackman ( 1975) had postulated that there are numerous and diverse methods to find out what motivates people. This ranged from simple written tests and questionnaires to informal interviews. Since this researcher contemplates to use a questionnaire where respondents would be asked to rate their experiences on various factors on a 5 point scale it was pertinent to review literature relating to Likert and Likert-type scales , their interpretation and subsequent techniques of analysis. One aspect of using Likert scale has been the raging debate on the validity of the subsequent treatment of the data as parametric data and conducting parametric statistical tests on the data. Norman ( 2010) had found in his study that parametric statistical tests can be conducted on Likert scale data even with small sample sizes , unequal variances and non normal distribution. Another aspect of the data analysis was the subsequent use of appropriate tools to analyze the data and in that context , studies on factor analysis , factor scores and the use and methods of factor score regression were reviewed.
Thus the review of literature seeks to research, analyze and interpret the various relevant studies that have been conducted on the aspect of the present study.
1.6 Literature on studies in Teacher motivation
Thomas Sergiovanni (1967) , in his study entitled “Factors Which Affect Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction of Teachers ” tested an alternate hypothesis that factors which satisfy and dissatisfy teachers are mutually exclusive as proposed by Frederick Herzberg and his associates and are not arranged on ‘conceptual continuum’ ( Sergiovanni 1967). The findings of his study revealed that factors affecting the job satisfaction and dissatisfaction of teachers were polarized in mutually opposite directions. The study further revealed that factors like achievement, recognition and responsibility contributed to job satisfaction of teachers and were polarized in the positive direction. Factors such as interpersonal relations between students and peers, school policies, unfairness, status, personal life , technical supervision , contributed to teacher dissatisfaction and were polarized towards the negative direction. The ‘satisfiers’ were shown to be factors which focus on the work itself and the ‘dissatisfiers’ were factors which focused on the conditions of work. The results of the study showed that Herzberg’s two factor theory applied to teacher motivation as well .
Cecil Miskel (1974) tested the hypothesis that the attitudes of educators differ from the attitudes of business managers towards risk orientations and intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. He used the Borgatta, Ford, and Bohrnstedt Work Components Study Questionnaire to compare the job orientations of employees in both educational organizations and business organizations. These employees were all college educated . The sample under study consisted of 432 teachers, 118 educational administration specialists and managers , and 192 business managers. One way Anova and two way Anova were used to study relationships and differences in the groups in the attitudinal scales. In the study Miskel found that teachers had greater concern for hygiene factors and low propensity for risk where as business managers showed greater risk propensity but lower concern for hygiene factors. Specialist educational administrators showed similar concern for hygiene factors as the teachers but also had high risk propensity like business managers.
Daniel Lortie ( 1975) seminal work on teaching as a profession has been cited as one of the most unique and helpful research on the teaching profession. The mainstay of Lortie’s work was his notion of the “apprenticeship of observation”. According to Lortie teachers teach just they were taught. An average student spends 13,000 hours in contact with teachers in the classroom by the time he graduates out of high school. This leads to an observing behaviour which acts as the basis of the teachers approach when he or she teaches; Lortie termed it Apprenticeship of observation. He argued that what students learn about teaching is imitative and intuitive rather than explicit and analytical. Lortie in his study offered seven quotes from teachers. Five of the seven quotes provided evidence that some specific practice by a teacher had its effect on students who carried it on to their own teaching careers. In the context of teacher motivation Lortie postulated that teachers are motivated the most when students excel. Thus student achievement was a major factor for teacher motivation according to the study. Recently Lortie’s study and his theories have received a lot of criticisms especially in the light of the fact that very limited empirical data was provided by Lortie as evidence and some recent researches have contradicted Lortie’s postulates.
Edward A. Holdaway ( 1978) investigated the satisfaction levels of teachers in Alberta ,Canada on specific aspects of their working conditions through questionnaire surveys among a stratified sample of teachers from 21 Alberta school systems. The researcher also examined the relationships between the satisfaction levels and other variables like sex, age, experience. He asked for free responses from the respondents and solicited information which was relevant to Herzberg’s’ two factor theory of motivators and hygiene factors. The teachers were also requested to list out changes that they would like to have in their working conditions. The factors which contributed the most to overall teacher satisfaction were those concerning “working with students.” The factors that contributed the most to teacher dissatisfaction were those concerning “attitudes of society and parents,””administration and policies,” and “physical conditions.” The changes that the respondents desired in working conditions were led by, “smaller classes” and “more preparation time”.
David W. Chapman and Malcolm A. Lowther (1982) proposed a conceptual framework of the various influences that affect teachers’ job satisfaction . The researchers reported a study which used the framework that was proposed by them and investigated relationships among specific abilities, values, and accomplishments with teachers’ job satisfaction. The results of the study supported the conceptual framework that was put forward by the researchers. The results of the study showed that women were more satisfied with their jobs as teachers than their male counterparts. Teachers’ competence and expertise were significantly related to their satisfaction at their job. Job satisfaction was shown to be related to giving low importance to those activities and goals would be difficult to meet in the given school. But it was also interestingly shown that if those actual goals could be achieved in they would have a strong positive relationship to job satisfaction. Carole Ames, Russell Ames (1984) in their paper ‘Systems of student and teacher motivation: Toward a qualitative definition ’described three motivational systems: ability-evaluative, task mastery, and moral responsibility. Value orientation is inherent in each of these motivation systems these are shared values of students and teachers. The perspective which is qualitative in nature related to distinct networks of cognitions and involved goals and values , attributions and strategy beliefs. Student motivation was represented by illustrating how each of the motivational systems could be extorted by competitive, cooperative and individualistic goals. Teacher motivation on the other hand was represented by illustrating how each of the systems originates from the specific goals of teachers.
Martin L . Maehr ( 1984) in his paper on motivation and school achievement proposed a concept of ‘personal investment ’. He posited that person’s perception of the meaning of a situation is very important to decide how he or she proposes to invest himself or herself to the situation . This meaning is firstly influenced by one’s perception of options or possibilities of alternate actions , secondly one’s view in relation to the situation along with one’s view of one’s capability of competent performance , thirdly the incentives and personal goals. In one paper entitled ‘Meaning and Motivation : Towards a theory of personal investment “ it was posited that teachers are highly motivated if teachers are highly motivated then their performance will also improve because performance was posited to e linked to motivation.
Gladys Styles Johnston , Vito Germinario ( 1985) conducted a study among ten elementary and five secondary schools in New Jersey with the objectives to examine the characteristics of teachers’ involvement in the decision making process in schools,. To test the relationship between the status of teachers’ decision making and the loyalty to principals, to investigate the degree of loyalty to principals, and to explore the dynamic structure of teacher decision making involvement in order to develop a better framework and model for activities. Analysis of variance was used as primary basis of statistical analysis. Further factor analysis was conducted on the data . The results of the study indicated that teacher decisional statuses were related to their loyalty to principals and there was no significant different in teacher satisfaction with decisional status with regards to elementary and secondary schools, elementary school teachers had greater loyalty for principals than secondary teachers and that teachers want to participate in those decision making areas which have a direct and close relation to the teaching-learning process.
C.J Brumback ( 1986 ) studied the relationship between teacher job satisfaction and student academic performance as a part of his doctoral thesis at the Georgia State University . The study found that there was a strong relationship between teachers’ job satisfaction and their students’ academic performance . The study also found that significant differences in scores existed between students who were taught by teachers with low job satisfaction and those with high job satisfaction.
Samuel B. Bacharach , Sharon C. Conley ( 1986) criticized the method of controlling teachers by controlling their compensation systems in order to impose ‘forced’ motivation on them . They advised school administrators not to ignore the basic tenets of organizational management and out forward the example of the merit pay system wherein the logic was that if teachers are not motivated to perform to their full potentials then could be bribed by the way of merit pay to perform better. The researchers argued that merit pay worked only in situations where collaborative work was not required by the workers and each worker’s contribution could be differentiated and most importantly when any extra work by a worker brought an additional revenue to the organization. The teaching profession did not provide either of the two situations. They dwelled on two aspects of school management , that of professional and bureaucratic. The researchers formed 10 questions which they argued could help schools diagnose their managerial practices and locate weaknesses. These 10 questions encouraged evaluation of a wide range of organizational practices from consensus on goals , encouragement of open communication, a structure that encouraged participation, coherent managerial policies, positive supervisory behaviour , effective design of work activities , constructive system for evaluating personnel , implementation of career development programs , respect for individual teachers and a culture of cooperation.
Allen Menlo and Pam Poppleton (1990) conducted a cross cultural study on the quality of teaching life among school teachers at the secondary level assisted by an international consortium of research teams from universities in 9 countries. These countries were United States , England ,West Germany , Japan , Singapore Israel , Soviet Union , Canada and Poland . In the study the three main components of the work lives of the teachers of the different countries were compared ; classroom practices , roles and responsibility and work conditions. Three main indicators of the quality of their work life as centrality of their work to their lives , job-stress and overall job satisfaction were compared too. Since the study was conducted among nine countries it was natural that there would be cross cultural factors which would influence the finding of the study especially since teaching and the methodologies were not the same in all the countries. The questionnaire was designed by research teams from the University of Michigan and Sheffield, the English questionnaire was translated in to the different native languages by experts in respective countries. Qualitative data provide the mainstay for the survey and was collected through the questionnaire and structured interviews. For the analysis the variables were divided into five categories : demographics , roles , conditions , practices, quality of work life. The most interesting result that the study projected revealed that despite differences in culture there was a common orientation among the teachers from the different countries. Thus certain principles were found to be universal. Two basic aspects found to be common among all the teachers from the different countries were teachers are more motivated when they were able to focus on the general well-being of students more than professional issues and responsibilities and when they experienced supportive relationships with their colleagues.
Bonnie S. Billingsley , Lawrence H. Cross ( 1992) conducted a study with the objective to identify the variables that influence teachers commitment and job satisfaction. They conducted this study both among general educators and special educators. Another related objective of the study was to determine whether the variables that influence commitment and job satisfaction of the teachers influence teacher’s intent to stay on in the profession of teaching. The sample of the study consisted of a random sample of 558 special educator and 589 general educators in Virginia, USA . A questionnaire was sent to the respondents . Multiple regression as conducted on the resultant data and cross validated , The results indicated that work related variables such as leadership support, role conflict, role ambiguity, and stress, are better predictors of commitment and job satisfaction than demographic variables like age , gender etc. The findings were more or less similar for general and special educators.
Larry Frase ( 1992 ) in his book “ Maximizing people power in schools : Motivating and managing teachers and staff ” presented ways and means to motivate teachers and staff. Frase posited that the intrinsic factors related to the work itself as also the job of teaching inherently brought joy and satisfaction to teachers and acted as motivators rather than extrinsic factors like rewards . Frase identified factors which were related to the work itself and termed it content factors .
Ellen A. Skinner , Michael J. Belmont ( 1993) examined the effects of 3 dimensions of teacher behaviour , that of involvement, structure and autonomy support on children’s achievement. The study involved 14 teachers and 144 students. Correlation analysis and path analysis were conducted and the analysis revealed that teacher involvement was central to children’s experiences in the classroom and that teachers provision of autonomy support and an optimal structure predicted children’s’ motivation throughout the year. The reciprocal effects of student motivation on the behaviour of teachers were also found in the study. The importance of teacher student relationship in optimizing student motivation and performance was noted.
Morton Inger ( 1993 ) in his paper entitled “ Teacher collaboration in secondary schools ” studied the effect of collaborative teaching practices in schools . He concluded that colleagues play a part in a teacher’s life because they are ‘ an integral , inseparable part of day to day work ’ ( Inger , 1993). He posited that schools should value shared work and give opportunities to teachers for collaborative work.
C. Barnabe , M. Burns ( 1994) empirically tested the Hackman and Oldham job characteristics model of motivation which proposed associative relations between worker motivation, job characteristics and psychological states . The related instrument: Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) was tested for its utility to determine factors affecting teacher’s motivation. 247 teachers (71.5% female, 67.2% between the ages of 40 and 59 yrs, 43.5% with at least 21 yrs experience teaching) in 4 different school boards in the province of Quebec in Canada were administered the Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS). The JDS instrument segregated adequately the job characteristics for the given sample. Expected relations between job characteristics and psychological states and between psychological states and motivation were found. The correlations in this study were however lower than those found in other studies with larger samples. Psychological states were found to interfere between job characteristics and outcomes.
S.A. Bobbit , M.C. Leich , S.D. Whitener , H F. Lynch (1994) . In 1991-92 a Teacher Followup Survey (TFS) was conducted in the United States of America . This was a follow up survey which was conducted among the respondents to another survey which was conducted in 1990-91 and was known as Schools And Staffing Survey ( SASS).Those teachers who had left the profession between the two surveys were characterized as leavers , those who had changed schools were characterized as movers and those who remained in the same school were characterized as stayers. The attrition rate was found to be higher ( 12.3%) in privates schools than in public schools. The attrition rate was found to be varying by age and significant in the under 30 years category. ‘ Stayers’ felt that higher salary and better benefits would encourage teachers to remain in teaching.
Dianne L. Taylor , Abbas Tashakori (1995) tested the interrelationship and dimensionality of the four variables : teacher’s decision participation , school climate , sense of efficacy and job satisfaction. They used a national data set which had its origin in the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS-88) project, which involved 1,035 schools with students from the eighth grade, and from the 1990 follow up of the same study in 1,296 schools. The final data set involved 9,987 teachers and 27,994 students. The researchers performed regression analyses with teachers’ sense of efficacy and job satisfaction as the predicted variables and decision participation and school climate as predictor variables . The results from the study showed that school climate had a strong relation with job satisfaction; but, the association between school climate and sense of efficacy was low. However , the various dimensions of school climate were found to be stronger predictors of teacher’s job satisfaction than the various dimensions of the variable decision participation. Lack of obstacles to teaching and principal leadership were found to be the strongest variables among the school climate which predicted job satisfaction. Faculty communication and lack of obstacles to teaching were found to be the best predictor variables for teacher’s sense of efficacy. Dimensions related to teachers participation in decision making did not emerge as strong predictors for teachers sense of efficacy or job satisfaction. Thus school climate and its various dimensions were found to be stronger predictors for job satisfaction and teachers sense of efficacy than teachers participation in decision making.
Alexander K. Tyree JR (1996) in his study investigated the dimensions teachers’ commitment to teaching. While the concept of teacher’s commitment to teaching is multidimensional the ,measurement of such commitment has traditionally has been one-dimensional. The researcher in the study empirically tested a multidimensional approach to teacher commitment measurement. The concepts were drawn from commitment theory . Items were used from the Administrator and Teacher Survey of 1984 and factor models of multiple dimensions were analyzed. The results corroborated the researchers theory that a multidimensional measurement of the commitment to teaching is justified.
Andre Bishay ( 1996) conducted a study involving two stages . In the first stage a sample of about 50 teachers were taken and their job satisfaction and levels of motivation were measured using a questionnaire survey. In the second stage a sample of 12 teachers were taken for a study using the experience sampling method. The Experience Sampling Method helped the researcher to determine which daily work related activities led to the highest levels of motivation and job satisfaction. It made use of an electronic device which was used to page the respondent several times a day. Every time the pager beeped the respondents completed a survey illustrating how they are feeling, what they are doing and other details. The teachers were beeped at a random rate 5 times a day and at the end of the survey this brought forth 190 reports of their daily experiences. Conventional data from the previous survey at stage 1 and data from the experience the sampling method corresponded with each other . Job satisfaction and motivation correlated with gender , responsibility levels, , age, years of teaching experience, activity among other factors. Results from both the Experience Sampling Method and the conventional survey showed that teachers, loved to teach above everything else. Job responsibility had an significant impact on job satisfaction ; teachers with higher responsibilities had higher satisfaction. Women however were less satisfied with their jobs than men. There was also a positive correlation between years of service and job satisfaction: results also indicated that with increase in the years of teaching experience the stress levels decreased.
Low Guat Tin, Lim Lee Hean and Yeap Lay Leng ( 1996 ) studied 27 highly motivated primary and secondary school teachers in Singapore through in-depth interviews. In this study, two primary school principals and four secondary school principals were approached to nominate 4 highly motivated teachers each from their schools. Three of the principals gave five names, thus a total of 27 teachers were interviewed. Ten of the those teachers were primary school teachers while the other 17 were from secondary schools. The interviews sought to identify factors which motivated these teachers so the interviews were direct , face to face and involved the simple act of asking the respondents what motivated them. The respondents were given as much time as required and the questions were open ended. The interviews were tape recorded for future reference. The results showed that the teachers were motivated by students, administrators, the nature of the job itself and some, by their religion. Though the data was not subjected to any statistical tests it was evident from the results that the female teachers found that teaching accommodates their roles better than other jobs. The study also reported that motivated teachers in turn motivated their students to do well and when the students did well they were in turn motivated to help their students further. This was an interactive relationship. The study also noted that intrinsic factors must be present for maximum motivation of teachers and that providing a good working environment and comfort was not enough teachers were most motivated when their self actualization and esteem needs were met.
J.Davis, , S.M. Wilson, (2000) studied school principals’ endeavours to empower their teachers and the results of such endeavours on the motivation , job satisfaction and stress levels of the teachers. The study involved 660 teachers from 44 schools in Eastern Washington . The participants were administered a questionnaire which measured four variables : job satisfaction, motivation, stress, and principals’ behaviour leading to empowerment of teachers. The items under motivation particularly determined impact, competence, meaningfulness, and choice. Satisfaction was determined through four items that related to the respondents’ general satisfaction with the work and their eagerness to continue with the same job. Job stress was determined using questions that asked participants their feelings while working. Empowering behaviors of principals were evaluated using a seven point Likert scale. The results showed that there was a significant difference between how principals rated their empowering behaviour and how teachers rated the same. Further the results indicated that there was a significant relationship between principals’ empowering behaviour and teacher motivation. The higher was the score that a principal received from teachers in empowering behaviour the higher was the teacher motivation. Results also showed that motivation was related to job satisfaction and job stress, the more intrinsically motivated teachers were more satisfied and less stressed about their jobs.
Gerald J. Brunetti ( 2001) conducted his study in order to measure the degree to which experienced high school teachers were satisfied with their work and to find out the principal motivating factors which motivated them to continue to teach. He conducted his study in two phases : in the first phase he sent a survey to all the high school teachers in the Northern California School District in the USA .The survey was conducted through an instrument known as The Experienced Teacher Survey which was specifically designed for the study. It had two purposes , one that of identifying a group of teachers from whom a sample could be drawn for the interview stage and the second to provide information about teachers’ satisfactions and their motivations to remain in teaching. In the second phase he selected some teachers from the first larger group and carried out interviews. The results showed that the teachers per se were highly satisfied with their jobs ; this was first illustrated in the survey responses and then supported in the interviews. As for the motivators to remain in teaching it was evident from the study that the students were the prime motivator. The teachers enjoyed working with young people , they loved to see them grow and change .Among the most rewarding experiences that teachers cited was that of seeing their students succeed and the unexpected success that of some students who had problems in school. Conversely disappointment was cited when students failed to do well. Among factors that were grouped as professional satisfaction factors , practical factors and social factors the professional satisfaction factors scored high in terms of being motivators and the practical factors scored lowest. The love and passion for the subject , excitement of classroom , collegiality or working with fellow teachers , also were significant motivators.
Deanne A. Crone and Robert H. Horner (2003) in their book ‘ Building positive behaviour support systems in schools . Functional Behavioural Assessment ’ posited that there were four behavioural systems in a school ; school-wide , classroom , non-classroom specific setting and individual .
John Coolahan ( 2003) in his study “ Attracting , developing and retaining effective teachers” , which was essentially a country background report for Ireland for a study by the organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD) , Coolahan posited that the profession of teaching in Ireland enjoyed high social status and thus the profession was competitive and motivating for the teachers .