Teacher Role-Identity and Motivation as a Dynamic System

• In Event: 66.069 - Motivation and Complexity: The Merits of a Dynamic Systems Approach to Theory and Research on Motivation in Education

Abstract

Objectives

The goal of this presentation is to describe an emerging conceptualization of role-identity and motivation as a complex dynamic system—the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI)—and its application to teachers’ professional role-identity and motivation. We will present an agent-based simulation of the model as well as describe a study that used the model to evaluate change in teachers’ role-identity and motivation in the context of a professional development program (PD).

Theoretical framework

A teacher’s professional identity (PI) refers to level of commitment to teaching as an important aspect of “who one is” as well as to the content of the identity—an interrelated network of beliefs, values, goals, perceptions, emotions, and actions that the person holds to mean being a teacher, and which frames interpreting experiences and making decisions (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004). The DSMRI conceptualizes teachers’ PI as a dynamic system comprised of four interdependent components (see Figure 1): (1) ontological and epistemological beliefs; (2) purpose and goals; (2) self-perceptions and self-definitions; and (4) perceived action possibilities (Kaplan et al., 2012b). This dynamic system emerges continuously through reciprocal relations with the culture, domain, social context, and the individual’s dispositions.

Methods

We will present an agent-based simulation of the model’s theoretical structure (using MATLAB) that demonstrates the model’s assumptions; specifically, how the interdependence of the four components results in non-linear change patterns in the system. Figure 2 presents the agent-based model: the top section shows how parameters can be modified in the simulation, including assumptions about components’ stability and magnitude of reciprocal influences among the components; the middle section presents the dynamic change in the components across 20 iterations of one simulated teacher; and the bottom section presents results of 100 simulated runs of the model, with random initial values of the components.

Finally, we will illustrate the DS approach to studying PI by briefly describing an empirical project in which data from peer conversations, longitudinal interviews, and longitudinal reflective writing were analyzed and used to investigate the change in teachers’ role-identity and motivation in the context of PD.

Data sources

Empirical data were collected from two groups (N1=22; N2=16) of science teachers who participated in an 8-day PD summer institute. All teachers wrote daily reflections; conversations among the teachers were recorded; and a sample of the teachers was interviewed before, during and following the institute.

Findings

Analyses were guided by the model and provided deep insight into the dynamic processes underlying individual teachers’ interpretation of PD experiences and changes in their network of beliefs, goals, self-perceptions, and action intentions in relation to science instruction along the time course of the PD institute.

Scholarly significance

By revealing insights that would not have been pursued if more traditional theoretical lenses had been applied, the presentation provides an example of the theoretical, empirical, and practical merits of conceptualizing teachers’ role-identity and motivation as a dynamic system over perspectives that view and operationalize motivational processes as comprised of distinct variables that are related in linear ways.

Authors

• Avi Kaplan, Temple University

• Joanna K. Garner, Old Dominion University

• Sarit Semo