Teachers' Working Conditions and Motivation: School Effects on Teachers' Achievement Goal Orientations

• In Event: Supportive Teachers, Supportive Schools? Antecedents and Consequences of Teacher Motivations

Abstract

Objectives. Teachers’ achievement goal orientations are known to affect teachers’ beliefs and behavior (for an overview, see Butler, 2014). In contrast, we know relatively little about the influence of school contexts on teachers’ achievement goal orientations. The few studies that exist are limited as analyses were only conducted at the individual level and subsequent findings can, thus, not be interpreted as true contextual effects (Janke et al., 2015; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2017). We aimed to overcome this shortcoming by analyzing associations between teachers’ perceptions of school characteristics and their achievement goal orientations at the individual and at the school level.

Framework. We distinguish between learning goal, performance approach- and performance-avoidance goal orientations, which have been core constructs for most approaches to teachers’ achievement goal striving (see Daumiller, et al., 2019; Janke, et al., 2019, for overviews on approaches to teachers’ goal striving). We derived hypotheses on potential antecedents of these goal orientations from Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Janke et al., 2015) and empirical research on the impact of goal structures (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2017). We expected that need supportive working conditions (characterized by autonomy support, growth-oriented feedback culture and social cohesion) would be associated with teachers’ learning goal orientation. Furthermore, based on research on goal structures, we assumed that corresponding school goal structures would be associated with the respective achievement goal orientations (e.g., positive association between performance-approach goal structures and teachers’ performance-approach goal orientation).

Methods. We asked 532 teachers (64.7% female; mean age = 44.9 years; SD = 11.4 years) from 40 different schools in Germany about their achievement goal orientations (Butler, 2014) and aspects of their work context, with paper questionnaires. We conducted two-level modelling with random intercepts. Teachers’ achievement goal orientations and individual teacher perceptions of contextual characteristics were analyzed at the individual level, and shared perceptions of these characteristics at the school level.

Results. Teachers’ learning goal orientations (ICC = .04) and performance-avoidance goal orientations (ICC = .05) varied significantly across schools. We found even more variation in perceived autonomy support, growth-oriented feedback culture and social cohesion (ICCs = .16 - .33). Perceived school goal structures were not characterized by substantial variation at the school level. At the school level, growth-oriented feedback culture corresponded positively with learning goal orientations, and social cohesion was negatively associated with performance-avoidance goal orientations. On the individual level, we found that autonomy support and social cohesion negatively predicted both performance-approach and performance-avoidance goal orientations. Detailed results are depicted in Table 1.

Significance. Our study supports the assumption that teachers’ achievement goal orientations are at least partly rooted in contextual factors situated in teachers’ work environment. Specifically, the results are in line with the assumption that a growth-oriented feedback culture may be suitable to facilitate teachers’ learning goal striving, whereas social cohesion at work might prevent teachers from engaging in performance-approach goal striving. Our findings underline the importance of environmental factors for teacher motivation and provide a starting point for motivation-oriented workplace development at school.

Authors

• Stefan Janke, University of Mannheim

• Martin Daumiller, University of Augsburg

• Oliver Dickhäuser, University of Mannheim

• Markus Dresel, Augsburg University