Study indicates keys to improving teacher motivation and engagement

Ensuring that teachers are motivated and fully committed to their work is crucial for their well-being, but also for the educational success of their students. Faced with this challenge, an international research coordinated by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), with the involvement of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and the Universitat de Barcelona (UB),  analysed and compared the preferences on different work dimensions, such as incentives or type of evaluation, of primary and secondary teachers in urban environments in Chile, Norway and Catalonia. The results, published in an open access article in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education, reveal that the value respondents place on these specific job aspects varies significantly by context.

“One way to address teacher dissatisfaction and burnout is not to apply the same policies everywhere, but to better tailor educational policies to their specific preferences, taking into account the country or cultural context. This personalisation could help to avoid the dissatisfaction generated when teachers perceive that policies are poorly adjusted to their reality,” highlights lecturer in Psychology and Education and coordinator of the research group of the Laboratory of Social Education (LES) of the UOC, Gerard Ferrer Esteban, He, alongside Antonina Levatino, UB researcher at the time of the research and now professor at the University of Seville, and Antoni Verger, professor in the Department of Sociology at the UAB, the institution coordinating the research, are the authors of this publication.

"For example,” says Antoni Verger, ”in contexts such as Catalonia or Norway, with a tradition of horizontal school governance, more importance is given to collegiality than to individual financial incentives. In these cases, promoting qualitative evaluation and collective incentives can help improve teacher well-being and reduce burnout and demotivation. In contrast, in places like Chile, where working conditions are more precarious, school governance policies that respond to teachers' material needs and expectations tend to be prioritised".

Despite these differences between the three education systems, the study also identified some common preferences among teachers in different contexts, which, according to the researchers, can shape education policies that improve teacher motivation and well-being:

1. More diverse and equitable education centres

A common thread among teachers in all three education systems is a preference for socially diverse classrooms, which represent richer and more inclusive learning environments. According to the researchers, this preference is related to the idea that working in diverse environments favours collaboration, adaptation and enrichment of the teaching task.

In this sense, for Gerard Ferrer Esteban, school desegregation policies are the key to guaranteeing diversity in classrooms and avoiding the concentration of students according to their socioeconomic or foreign origin. “These policies not only can improve overall educational results, but also help reinforce social cohesion and mutual respect. In addition, more diverse and equitable educational centres generate a more positive and enriching work climate for teachers, which would increase their satisfaction and professional commitment,” adds the researcher.

2. Commitment to qualitative assessment methods

The aspect in which the work has detected the most similarities between the preferences of teachers in the three countries is in the methods for evaluating the task. In all three education systems, they like to be evaluated for their classroom practices with qualitative methodologies, such as classroom peer observation and constructive feedback, rather than using outcome-based methods and metrics based on external standardised tests.

“It is not true that teachers do not want to be evaluated, as is often said from outside the school world. What teachers do not want is to be evaluated with tools that are only based on the results of their students and that, therefore, do not perceive the complexity of their work,” says Antoni Verger. In this sense, qualitative methods are seen by the study participants as more constructive and less stressful, since they provide a more complete view of educational practice and promote continuous improvement through collective feedback and professional reflection. “This type of evaluation also enhances collegiality and teamwork, important factors for teacher satisfaction and well-being,” the UOC researcher emphasises.

3. Collective incentives at school level

Another common element among the participants in the study is the rejection of management practices that encourage comptetivity among teachers, rigid hierarchies and pressure for results. These practices, which are often associated with public management models inspired by organisational measures typical of the private sector, such as new public management (NPM), can generate tensions and discontent, as they erode trust and collaboration among colleagues, key aspects for creating a good working environment.

In contrast to this competitiveness among colleagues, a common preference in the different contexts studied are collective incentives, implemented at the school level (and not individually), which could foster a more motivated, cooperative and cohesive work environment. “It is understood that this could have a positive impact on teacher well-being and overall school performance,” explains Gerard Ferrer Esteban.

4. Clear objectives and effective communication

Another common preference is to have clear and well-communicated objectives. According to the researchers, when educational objectives are well defined and shared, teachers work more confidently and the stress associated with uncertainty or lack of direction is reduced. “These objectives, combined with proper evaluation and effective communication, help to create a structured and motivating work environment, which improves teachers' professional experience,” stresses Gerard Ferrer Esteban.

An innovative methodology to avoid bias

To reach these results, the researchers asked study participants to choose between pairs of schools, which differed in five characteristics related to different work dimensions: school composition, educational quality assessment, goal setting, relationships, and outcome-based financial incentives. “These are aspects that have been directly or indirectly altered by contemporary educational reforms,” the authors explain.

According to the researchers, this is an innovative approach in the field of social sciences that helps to overcome the limitations of surveys with direct questions, since it allows for an unbiased estimate of the importance given by teachers to different job dimensions. Specifically, they are experiments that serve to mitigate potential social desirability bias, i.e., when answering in the way that is believed to be socially desirable, rather than according to actual beliefs. “This bias may appear when teachers are asked about productivity-based financial incentives and other instruments that are controversial and often considered politically charged,” concludes Gerard Ferrer Esteban.

Reference article:

Levatino, A., Ferrer-Esteban, G., & Verger, A. (2024). Unveiling teachers' work preferences: A conjoint experiment on the implications of school governance reform across three countries. Teaching and Teacher Education, 146, 104631. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2024.104631