Teacher motivation from a goal content perspective: Beginning teachers’ goals for teaching

Viewing teacher motivation from a goal content perspective, this paper examines graduating and early career teachers’ professional goals. Responses to an open-ended survey question by 332 graduating teacher education students and 162 early career teachers were analysed through a collaborative, inductive-deductive process. Participants nominated eighteen types of professional goals which were categorised as overarching personal, situated and career goals. Cohort differences reveal some statistically significant goal emphases at the graduating and early career stages. A framework is developed, Beginning Teachers’ Professional Goals, which has potential future use for examining teachers’ goals at particular career stages and contributing to our understanding of teacher motivation.

[1]  Andrew J. Martin,et al.  Teachers’ workplace well-being: Exploring a process model of goal orientation, coping behavior, engagement, and burnout , 2012 .

[2]  Douglas McDougall,et al.  A Study of Novice Teachers: Challenges and Supports in the First Years. , 2009 .

[3]  T. Maxwell,et al.  Challenging experiences faced by beginning casual teachers: here one day and gone the next! , 2009 .

[4]  C. Day.  New Lives of Teachers , 2010 .

[5]  Dennis M. McInerney,et al.  What do students say about their motivational goals?: Towards a more complex and dynamic perspective on student motivation , 2003 .

[6]  C. Ng.  Do career goals promote continuous learning among practicing teachers? , 2010 .

[7]  K. Wentzel,et al.  What Is It That I'm Trying to Achieve? Classroom Goals from a Content Perspective. , 2000, Contemporary educational psychology.

[8]  A. Elliot.  Approach and avoidance motivation and achievement goals , 1999 .

[9]  M. Ford,et al.  A Taxonomy of Human Goals and Some Possible Applications , 2019, Humans as Self-Constructing Living Systems.

[10]  Caroline F. Mansfield,et al.  Thriving not just surviving: A review of research on teacher resilience , 2011 .

[11]  C. Day.  Committed for life? Variations in teachers’ work, lives and effectiveness , 2008 .

[12]  Athanasios Papaioannou,et al.  A Measure of Teachers’ Achievement Goals , 2007 .

[13]  Carole A. Ames,et al.  Achievement Goals in the Classroom: Students' Learning Strategies and Motivation Processes , 1988 .

[14]  Geoffrey D. Borman,et al.  Teacher Attrition and Retention: A Meta-Analytic and Narrative Review of the Research , 2008 .

[15]  Caroline F. Mansfield,et al.  Goals for Teaching: Towards a Framework for Examining Motivation of Graduating Teachers. , 2012 .

[16]  G. Hughes.  Teacher Retention: Teacher Characteristics, School Characteristics, Organizational Characteristics, and Teacher Efficacy , 2012 .

[17]  Kennon M. Sheldon,et al.  The Independent Effects of Goal Contents and Motives on Well-Being: It’s Both What You Pursue and Why You Pursue It , 2004, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[18]  M. Ford.  Motivating Humans: Goals, Emotions, and Personal Agency Beliefs , 1992 .

[19]  A. Ugaste,et al.  Conceptions of Finnish and Estonian Pre-school Teachers' Goals in Their Pedagogical Work , 2012 .

[20]  Paul W. Richardson,et al.  Motivations, perceptions, and aspirations concerning teaching as a career for different types of beginning teachers , 2008 .

[21]  Goal orientations of teacher trainees: Longitudinal analysis of magnitude, change and relevance , 2010 .

[22]  Carole A. Ames.  Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation. , 1992 .

[23]  John V. Kucsera,et al.  Goal orientation towards teaching (GOTT) scale , 2011 .

[24]  Geoffrey E. Mills,et al.  Educational Research: Competencies for Analysis and Application , 1995 .

[25]  Anita Woolfolk Hoy,et al.  Changes in teacher efficacy during the early years of teaching: A comparison of four measures , 2005 .

[26]  L. Malmberg,et al.  Pre-service teachers’ goals and future-time extension, concerns, and well-being , 2011 .

[27]  A. McCormack,et al.  The reality of uncertainty: The plight of casual beginning teachers , 2005 .

[28]  Paul W. Richardson,et al.  Motivational Factors Influencing Teaching as a Career Choice: Development and Validation of the FIT-Choice Scale , 2007 .

[29]  R. Butler,et al.  Teachers' goal orientations for teaching: Associations with instructional practices, interest in teaching, and burnout , 2010 .

[30]  Ruth Butler,et al.  Teachers' achievement goal orientations and associations with teachers' help seeking: Examination of a novel approach to teacher motivation. , 2007 .

[31]  S. Shim,et al.  Predicting teachers' achievement goals for teaching: The role of perceived school goal structure and teachers' sense of efficacy , 2013 .

[32]  E. Low,et al.  Why I want to teach and how I feel about teaching—formation of teacher identity from pre-service to the beginning teacher phase , 2009 .

[33]  Ulrich Trautwein,et al.  Motivations for choosing teaching as a career : An international comparison using the FIT-Choice scale , 2012 .

[34]  Ruth Butler,et al.  Striving to connect: Extending an achievement goal approach to teacher motivation to include relational goals for teaching , 2012 .

[35]  P. Sammons,et al.  Teachers Matter: Connecting Work, Lives And Effectiveness , 2007 .

[36]  Katariina Salmela-Aro,et al.  Goal Contents, Well-being, and Life Context During Transition to University: A Longitudinal Study , 1997 .

[37]  Paul W. Richardson,et al.  Current and future directions in teacher motivation research , 2010 .

[38]  M. Dresel,et al.  Rethinking Teachers' Goal Orientations: Conceptual and Methodological Enhancements. , 2011 .

[39]  Cassandra M. Guarino,et al.  Teacher Recruitment and Retention: A Review of the Recent Empirical Literature , 2006 .

[40]  P. Schutz,et al.  The development of a goal to become a teacher. , 2001 .

[41]  R. Butler,et al.  Striving to connect and striving to learn: Influences of relational and mastery goals for teaching on teacher behaviors and student interest and help seeking , 2014 .

[42]  M. Lemos.  Students' and teachers' goals in the classroom , 1996 .

[43]  C. Sinclair.  Initial and changing student teacher motivation and commitment to teaching , 2008 .

[44]  J. Hong.  Why do some beginning teachers leave the school, and others stay? Understanding teacher resilience through psychological lenses , 2012 .

[45]  Caroline F. Mansfield.  Rethinking motivation goals for adolescents: Beyond achievement goals , 2012 .