Mathematics and special educators who taught in middle schools that had or had not made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) were surveyed to compare their motivation across three domains on a Teacher Motivation Survey: Work Environment, Professional Identity, and Career Satisfaction. Educators from schools who had met AYP reported a significantly better Work Environment, also referred to as collective efficacy, than that of educators from schools that had not met AYP. There were no statistically significant differences for special or mathematics educators, whether from a school that had or had not met AYP. Other results from the Teacher Motivation Survey are presented, including qualitative analyses from open-ended queries in the survey. Implications for expanding this research as well as more immediate applications and actions for school administrators are noted.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) [
Whether a school achieves AYP or not has implications for instructional decisions for the upcoming year. When analyzing AYP data, administrators and educators determine curricular areas and student populations where continued work is needed in order to meet AYP criteria for the following year. Conversely, for schools who have met AYP criteria, school personnel focus more on continued achievement for students versus feeling more public pressure to increase the likelihood students will “
While NCLB has evolved under the leadership of the current administration (e.g., [
Finnigan and Gross [
Other researchers seeking to determine the impact of AYP on educators’ motivation point to the critical role teacher self-efficacy plays. As a construct, teacher self-efficacy rests on educators’ beliefs that they can bring about desired student outcomes [
Students with disabilities who are working toward passing the same state assessments as their typical peers are usually students with high-incidence disabilities (e.g., learning disabilities, high-functioning autism, and emotional disabilities). Although sometimes the students are taught content, such as mathematics, in special education self-contained settings, most often the students are in general education classrooms taught by mathematics teachers. In particular in middle and high school grades, mathematics teachers instruct students with high-incidence disabilities as part of a cotaught class (i.e., with a special education coteacher) or as the sole teacher in the classroom. As such, determining the perspectives of special educators and mathematics teachers because they are tasked with instructing students to do well on state assessments is a logical starting point for examining further how AYP status affects them.
Davies [
Billingsley [
From the most recent data on performance of 8th grade students with disabilities in mathematics, an average of 67% scored below proficient (considered a “did not pass”), with a range across states and U.S. territories of 26% to 95% below proficient [
Since NCLB, there has been an increase in research noting how critical it is for teachers of mathematics to know the content, and know the content deeply (Tchoshanov, 2011) [
In sum, mathematics and special educators can, and many do, work collaboratively toward assuring students with and without disabilities achieve AYP targets each school year. In some school years, the students succeed, while in other school years, students need to score higher. How, then, do mathematics and special educators who have invested time, energy, and effort into teaching students content on states’ assessments feel when AYP targets are not met? How is their motivation impacted? Do they still hold high beliefs in their skills as individual educators as well as having high beliefs in what their schools’ educators can accomplish the next school year? And what is the impact on their career satisfaction?
Bandura’s [
Factors impacting Teacher Motivation.
According to Bandura [
Further, Hoy and Spero [
Collective efficacy is characterized by people’s shared belief that they can work together to bring about desired results. Under such circumstances, the Work Environment is positive, supportive, and respectful. Colleagues are willing to and comfortable with sharing knowledge and skills with each other.
The Work Environment is not structured, perceived, or created in isolation from the individual’s actions that influence how environments function. Collective agency is influenced by personal efficacy, which impacts personal motivation. Therefore, individuals who believe their actions can have the desired impact are motivated to act. For example, educators who believe their teaching can result in student learning are motivated to teach. Therefore, educators who have a strong Professional Identity feel they have control over instructional decisions, a voice on important school matters, and autonomy [
The interaction between collective and personal agencies (efficacy) influences teachers’ satisfaction with their chosen profession over time. For educators, career satisfaction is represented by their desire to go to school each day, as well as the stimulation, enjoyment, and fulfillment they gain from their experiences as teachers. Thus, Ware and Kitsantis [
As one might predict, as stress increases, job satisfaction decreases. In another study, E. M. Skaalvik and S. Skaalvik [
Stephanou et al. [
In this research, the three domains of Work Environment, Professional Identity, and Career Satisfaction were identified as those that impact overall Teacher Motivation because they are reflected in the collective bodies of literature noted regarding collective and self-efficacy and the elements impacting retention and job satisfaction. The purpose of the study was to examine teacher motivation factors from educators teaching in schools that did or did not have AYP status in the previous school year (given that the current school year’s status was dependent on the previous year’s scores). Since the literature does not offer definitive perspectives regarding these questions, the study was based upon null hypothesis for each question as follows. There will be no statistically significant difference on the total Teacher Motivation Survey between teachers at AYP Yes schools and teachers at AYP No schools. There will be no statistically significant difference on each of the three domains between teachers at AYP Yes schools and teachers at AYP No schools. There will be no statistically significant difference in Teacher Motivation ratings between special educators and math teachers at AYP Yes schools and special educators and math teachers at AYP No schools. Work Environment and Professional Identity self-ratings are not predictors of career assessment self-ratings for educators who teach at schools that do or do not have AYP.
This survey was conducted in two Mid-Atlantic States in the USA in accordance with procedures approved by the university’s institutional review board. The states selected offered a range of urban, rural, and suburban school districts. Each of the states selected measured AYP utilizing state-specific benchmark assessments. These two states were selected because the researchers had direct knowledge of the assessment systems, having taught and supervised student teachers in those states. Additionally, these procedures were aligned with those of other researchers examining teachers’ reactions and actions related to AYP and NCLB in that researchers targeted participants from one or several states (e.g., [
Potential participants were math and special education teachers in Maryland and Virginia in schools that contain a grade 8. From this total population (4,308), 25% of math teachers and special educators were randomly selected using Market Data Retrieval (MDR) services. MDR used a systematic method of acquiring emails for the random selection of educators targeted for receiving the Teacher Motivation Survey. This process yielded a total sample of 1,077 teachers to whom the online Teacher Motivation Survey (TMS) was sent twice. A paper version of the survey was offered upon request. First, an initial invitation to participate in research with the online link was sent. About ten days later, a second email was sent as a follow-up reminder, which also contained the online link for the survey. The survey data were collected at the end of school year, whereby schools where the participants taught had acquired their AYP status based on the previous year’s high-stakes testing.
One hundred forty-four teachers submitted responses to the survey; 131 provided useable data, resulting in a response rate of 12%. Although this is a low response rate, it exceeds the 2-3% rate reported by Rigol and Ziemnicki [
Approximately 60% of the participants represented schools who had achieved AYP the previous school year (
While nonresponse bias is always a concern, one strategy to address this concern is to compare the sample with the greater population [
The Teacher Motivation Survey (TMS) was developed by the researchers based upon a review of instruments previously used on similar topics (e.g., [
While the majority of prompts were forced choice (e.g., Likert-based or check boxes), some open-ended opportunities were also offered (e.g., explain a forced-choice response, list perspectives, or make open comments). For the Likert-based statements in the domains of Work Environment, Professional Identity, and Career Satisfaction, ratings were as follows: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, and 4 = strongly agree (refer to the Appendix in Supplementary Material available online at
In the Appendix, all statements for each of the three domains (Work Environment, Professional Identity, and Career Satisfaction) are identified. At the end of each domain, an open-ended prompt invited participants to type any other information they would like to share with the researchers related to that domain. Additionally, at the end of the entire survey, a fourth open-ended query invited participants to share any other information with the researchers related to the topic of the survey.
Reliability scores for the instrument were calculated using Cronbach’s alpha, resulting in .85 for the Work Environment subscale, .86 for the Professional Identity subscale, .91 for the Career Satisfaction subscale, and .93 for the total Teacher Motivation Survey. In addition, ancillary demographics (21 items) and qualitative (4 items) responses were obtained to ascertain emergent patterns and enhance the understanding of the quantitative comparisons.
The study used a causal comparative mixed methods design in which the independent variable of AYP status during the previous school year was measured by participants’ response to a single forced-choice item (Met AYP or Did Not Meet AYP in the previous school year) to address the first three research questions. Additionally, for Research Question 3, data were analyzed by separating special educators from math educators at AYP Yes and AYP No schools. The dependent variable of teacher motivation was determined via subscale and composite scores across 46 Likert-type items in the domains of Work Environment, Professional Identity, and Career Satisfaction. For Research Question 4, a causal comparative mixed methods design was used to determine if Professional Identity and Work Environment were predictive of Career Satisfaction for all participants.
The independent variable of AYP status was measured by participant response to a single forced-choice prompt used to create two distinct categories for comparison (i.e., Met AYP or Did not meet AYP in the previous school year). The dependent variable of Teacher Motivation was determined via subscale and composite scores across Likert-type items in the domains of Work Environment, Professional Identity, and Career Satisfaction. All quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software. A series of
In addition, participants were also given an opportunity to expand upon the forced-choice prompts in the TMS regarding each of the three subscales and to the overall survey. The responses to these four prompts were sorted by AYP Yes and AYP No and analyzed systematically by applying a constant-comparison method [
The types of qualitative responses regarding all three subscales were similar regardless of whether or not the participants were from AYP Yes or AYP No settings. Both groups shared a variety of frustrations and successes centered upon the people with whom they work (e.g., administrators, colleagues, students, parents), the place itself (e.g., school, district, county), and even the overall state of education in this country. When rating each separately coded item for tone (e.g., positive, negative, neutral), positive comments from teachers in AYP Yes settings represented 29% of their comments; positive comments from those in AYP No settings represented 28% of their comments.
The averaged self-ratings for all three domains were calculated per AYP group to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference on the total TMS between teachers at AYP Yes schools and teachers at AYP No schools (Research Question 1; refer to Figure
Visual comparison of means per domain and total TMS.
The averaged self-ratings for each of the three domains of Work Environment, Professional Identity, and Career Satisfaction were calculated per AYP group to determine if statistically significant differences on each subscale were present between teachers at AYP Yes schools and teachers at AYP No schools (Research Question 2). Teachers in schools where AYP success was reported for the previous school year had higher mean scores on each of the three subscales. Teachers from AYP Yes schools reported a significantly better Work Environment, also referred to as collective efficacy (
Therefore, the null is rejected since a significant difference was found to exist on one of the three subscales. Specific insights regarding each of the domains were obtained by analyzing participant responses to three qualitative prompts connected to the three domains (Questions 2.5, 3.2, and 4.5).
Relative to Work Environment frustrations, participants shared a variety of candid comments. “Students have become increasingly disrespectful directly to teachers” (AYP No). “In our county most parents are very outspoken and involved in their children’s school activities—and feel free to question the teachers and call the principal! I feel strongly that teachers today have a target on their backs” (AYP Yes).
Concerns regarding other teachers were shared as well: “Some of the teachers I work with are inadequate or do not want to change their teaching methods. This creates issues in learning in the classroom” (AYP No). Issues with administrative support, especially relative to management of student behavior, were mentioned by both groups. “Discipline management at the administrative level is low” (AYP No). “Students with poor behavior are left in the classrooms. This steals from the instructional time of those students who are in school to learn” (AYP No). “Our administrators are cold, ineffective “textbook” people” (AYP Yes). “We thrive despite being micromanaged by incompetent leadership” (AYP Yes). Comments from both groups also addressed assessment, noting that “Testing is ruining public education” (AYP Yes).
But comments regarding Work Environment were not all negative. In fact, 48% of the AYP Yes comments were positive and 29% of the AYP No comments were positive. Teachers in both groups noted their satisfaction with opportunities to make a difference for their students. “I feel like a very important person in the lives of my students” (AYP No). Some participants from each group also had positive experiences with administrators. “I feel that we have a strong administrative team that is generally supportive of the teachers” (AYP Yes). Some participants indicated that professional development opportunities have been readily provided while others offered suggestions that the school needed more resources or that teachers needed more time to collaborate. Some participants provided personal rather than professional reasons for viewing the Work Environment as a positive (e.g., close to home, benefits). Occasionally, someone proclaimed, “It is a great place to work!” (AYP No).
Relative to Professional Identity, a similar pattern of responses across the two groups was found. Interestingly, many comments were of a clarifying nature. Some were proclamations such as “Students need to be valued and respected for who they are and where they are in their learning” (AYP Yes) or “the public no longer places the value on education it once did” (AYP No). Other clarifying comments placed conditions upon success. “I am effective in the classrooms that have teachers that are progressive and use many methods in their teaching” (AYP Yes). Many comments were centered upon workload issues and instructional/curricular concerns, especially regarding accountability initiatives. “We are encouraged to base decisions on student progress but when expected to adhere to the almighty timeline of testing there is not the time necessary to move according to students’ needs” (AYP Yes). Several participants noted that the content has been allowed to become boring due to the need to teach to high-stakes tests. “I feel like our state standards are a mile long and an inch deep with no real focus on teaching students to think mathematically or to enjoy the subject” (AYP No).
The issue of autonomy surfaced as well, with obvious paradoxes in experience reflected in these comments: “One of the reasons that many teachers remain at this school is that there is a great deal of autonomy in the strategies and methods that we employ in our teaching” (AYP No) versus “Teachers at my school are told what and how to teach … there is NO “trust” of a teacher’s ability to know their students and chart a course for success” (AYP No). The comments regarding issues impacting Professional Identity were heavily negative for the AYP Yes group at only 19% positive; of the comments shared by the AYP No group, 31% were positive.
Comments regarding Career Satisfaction reflected similarities once again between the two groups. In each case, some of the topics already discussed were re-emphasized, such as behavior, administration, assessment, and workload. However, additional topics surfaced that had not previously appeared in the comments. Some were relative to a more global perspective on teaching as a whole. For instance, “Lately I am not as excited about teaching as I once was” (AYP Yes) or “After 12 years of teaching, I have lost the joy of teaching due to the lack of flexibility in what and how I teach” (AYP No). Others spoke very specifically about the pay and support deficits in the profession noting that “Teachers NEED more support—financially and with the public! Most teachers I work with are truly “unsung heroes” (AYP Yes). Both groups expressed 21% of their comments from a positive perspective, sharing observations such as “The relationships you build with students and parents is priceless” and “I left teaching for two years to work for a nonprofit and came back really valuing the difference I can make as well as basically being my own boss” (AYP No).
Analyses of special educators’ and mathematics educators’ ratings, separated by AYP status, were conducted to determine if there were statistically significant differences between the two types of educators (Research Question 3). Mean scores on the overall TMS were slightly higher for participants from AYP Yes schools, but no significant differences were found (
Visual comparison of means for math educators and special educators separated by AYP status.
Research Question 4 focused on whether educators’ ratings in the domains of Professional Identity and Work Environment were predictive of their Career Satisfaction. For this research question, all educators’ data were averaged per domain (i.e., no separation for AYP Yes or AYP No schools), and a regression analysis was conducted. Regression results indicated the overall model of two predictors (Professional Identity and Work Environment) significantly predicted Career Satisfaction,
A summary of the relationship between each predictor and the dependent variable can be found in Table
Summary of predictor variables in final model for Career Satisfaction.
|
|
|
| |
---|---|---|---|---|
Work Environment | .099 | .080 | .868 | .387 |
Professional Identity | .752 | .551 | 5.965 | .000* |
At the very end of the survey, participants were offered the opportunity to share any additional comments regarding the content of the survey (Question 6.1). The respondents made their own connections among the domains relative to overall motivation. Many offered in-depth comments and broad-based observations both about their own situation and education as a whole. Some participants returned to topics already noted. For instance, NCLB [
However, new, and sometimes surprising, insights were also shared. “If a teacher does not believe that a student can overcome their obstacles in order to be successful, they are negatively impacting our youth” (AYP Yes). The respondents frequently linked environment and identity with career satisfaction. “So much of a person’s work satisfaction in a school stems from the leadership and integrity of the administration” (AYP No). “I think the school atmosphere can make or break a teacher and it was interesting to think of the statements you presented” (AYP Yes). Teachers also conveyed how much they appreciated being heard, but with reservations regarding the tone they may have presented. “It is a shame the administration of my school district does not care to know what I just told you” (AYP No). “I feel like I have (quite sadly) answered this survey in a very negative manner. I feel bad about that, but I have been honest about: student apathy, administration noninvolvement (on a professional level), the feeling of being “trapped” in my content and in my job as a teacher in general” (AYP Yes). Finally, some participants wanted to make sure that it was clear how differently they feel about teaching compared to where or what they teach. “I do not wish to give the impression that I do not like teaching—I love teaching” (AYP No).
Teachers at both AYP and non-AYP schools were motivated to teach. Although means were slightly higher for AYP Yes settings, they were not significantly higher. The results of this study indicated that the strength of one’s Professional Identity (i.e., self-efficacy) can outweigh the impact of AYP relative to overall motivation. Work Environment (i.e., collective efficacy) was most subject to influence of AYP status, which indicates one area where school leaders could focus for educators at AYP No schools. To that end, Finnigan and Daly [
Mean scores for educators at AYP No schools were not much lower than those at AYP Yes schools in our sample for Work Environment. This could indicate that educators feel much collective efficacy, as measured by Work Environment, whether their school has or has not already attained AYP status. School leaders need to be aware of the needs of frontline educators in making changes to gain or maintain AYP. Teacher Motivation may be a malleable trait; policy makers and administrators should seek input from teachers regarding motivation and put interventions in place when such queries indicate low motivation levels. Indeed, Byrd-Blake et al. [
For administrators in AYP No settings, targeting motivation as a vehicle for change should be beneficial. E. M. Skaalvik and S. Skaalvik [
The role of Professional Identity, while being less related to AYP status than Work Environment, is seemingly important for overall Career Satisfaction. Viel-Ruma et al. [
Again, these results concur with those from Viel-Ruma et al. [
Teachers’ self-efficacy, however, is not only influenced by techniques they may need to learn, but also by techniques and content areas they already know, yet must defer that content and those techniques to instructional time focused on areas tested on states’ assessments. For example, Wills and Sandholtz [
The differences across the types of teachers who participated in this study, math educators and special educators, were minimal. We find it interesting that the special educators lacked the same level of Career Satisfaction as did their math education counterparts in spite of having slightly higher motivation from the Work Environment and Professional Identity. The qualitative comments provide some insight into these findings. Many of the workload and paperwork burdens noted in the comments were related to special education.
For all participants, over half of their administrators, regardless of AYP status, had been at the current school for four or fewer years, indicating the relative newness of the principal to a given school. Other researchers have expressed concerns regarding the high turnover rate for principals, although it is unclear from studies (including ours) why principals at some schools are within a relatively new phase of their tenure [
Educators acknowledge that their principals influence their motivation. In addition to implications for how school-based leaders can positively influence educators’ self- and collective efficacy, it is instructive to note what influences school-based leaders’ efficacy. Leithwood and Jantzi [
Finnigan [
School district leaders also receive guidance from personnel at the state and federal levels, particularly pertaining to the desired outcomes for students regarding state assessment scores. It may be that personnel at varied leadership levels, including policy makers who may or may not realize the impact of policies at the school level, need to become more aware of what teachers and students are doing to achieve AYP status. Perhaps the further away from the classroom that leaders are (e.g., school-based administrators compared to federal policy makers) influences the degree to which leaders see the need to interest in knowing how to motivate educators responsible for students’ scores for AYP. Studies that illuminate how teachers feel can provide near- and distal-level leaders with valuable information from which to develop responsive actions. Additionally, Eyal and Roth [
Finnigan and Gross [
In the present study, the qualitative analyses of responses to open-ended questions enable us to hear individual participants’ voices. After having responded to multiple open-ended questions and asked if they had any other content they wanted to tell the researchers, educators still kept writing to us. Their comments return us to the survey’s themes of self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and career satisfaction, and they remind us of how critical it is to have effective school-based administrators. As Mintrop and Sunderman [
Generalization of this research is limited as participants were from only two Mid-Atlantic States. Additionally, only the teachers in schools with accessible email lists were included through Market Data Retrieval and the rate of nondeliveries of the survey is not known to the researchers. The low response rate coupled with concerns regarding nonresponse bias also suggests caution about generalizing beyond these participants. Although the Teacher Motivation Survey was completed anonymously by participants, the nature of survey research assumes honesty and accuracy in responses, which cannot be verified.
Replication of this research with educators teaching varied grade levels and in different teaching positions (e.g., third-grade general educators, eighth-grade science teachers) is necessary to determine both how well the Teacher Motivation Survey as an instrument is able to acquire information described in this study and to identify similarities and differences in responses. Gathering information from educators at schools that have or have not achieved AYP is essential to ensure these educators’ voices are heard and that their input is heeded. In particular, comparisons among the three domains of Work Environment (collective efficacy), individual Professional Identity (self-efficacy), and Career Satisfaction enabled us to determine more specific areas for attention. To extend our knowledge further, a larger and more representative educator sample, to include additional geographic locations, is needed, along with acquiring more in-depth qualitative data (e.g., focus interviews). Additionally, as Finnigan and Daly [
Just as educators’ work is to adjust instruction to be responsive to students’ needs, this research provides some insights into areas where policy makers and administrators might adjust their actions to be responsive to teachers’ needs for motivation. Future research could examine perspectives from school-based administrators regarding their perceptions and actions toward maintaining or increasing motivation for educators at their respective schools. Conversely, it is also important to examine motivation factors for school-based administrators, perhaps via a companion to the TMS survey, but designed for administrators. Foley and Nelson [
Given the pressures to attain and retain AYP Yes status in U.S. schools, it is logical that motivation for school-based administrators and educators in their schools may be affected similarly, particularly for those at schools who have failed to acquire AYP status for more than one year. Although it may be quite challenging to invest time and energy during the school year to teach students content assessed on states’ assessments, it can be all the more demoralizing to have made that investment and not have it pay off. Consequently, identifying and implementing methods to motivate teachers and their administrators can be a sound investment for school systems. Further research could focus on revealing methods for motivating the professionals tasked with ensuring students achieve, particularly for professionals at AYP No schools.
Although this research was conducted in the USA and examined AYP status that is unique to the USA, the influences on teacher motivation are universal from an international perspective. For example, Klassen [
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.