Accountability, Incentives and Teachers’ Motivation to Perform: A Conjoint Experiment

• In Event: Enactment of Performance-Based Accountability in Education: Implications for Stakeholders

Abstract

1. Objectives
In test-based accountability (TBA) systems, school actors face consequences of a different nature according to their levels of performance and adhesion to centrally-defined learning standards. Financial rewards are usually at stake in TBA systems that aim to incentivize performance progress among teachers and schools. The idea is that the perspective of gaining a bonus triggers teachers’ motivation, fostering the quality of their teaching.
In this paper we aim at assessing how important financial incentives and other measures of performance-based governance are in determining teachers’ motivation compared with other types of work incentives. We furthermore explore to what extent teachers differ in which factors motivate them. Our main research questions are: What is the motivational strength of financial rewards and management goal-setting? To what extent teachers systematically differ in the importance they give to different work motivations, also according to their school contexts and working conditions?

2. Perspectives
Behavioral scientists consider rewards and goal-setting as ways to boost extrinsic motivation (Ryan and Deci, 2000). Literature has however longer argued that teachers are principally intrinsically motivated (Lortie, 1975; Firestone and Pennell, 1993), i.e. their engagement is mainly motivated by personal desire and the identification with the profession. It remains thus unclear whether material incentives really have the potential of fostering teachers’ motivation and under what circumstances. Previous research has examined teachers’ extrinsic and intrinsic motives jointly, finding that intrinsic ones prevail (Mintrop and Ordenes, 2017). Nonetheless, it might be that social desirability could be at stake when teachers are asked directly about their work motives, since social justice discourses and the desire to benefit students shape the idealistic imaginary of the 'good teacher´.

3. Methods and data sources
To answer our questions, we use a conjoint experiment inserted in a survey (Levatino, 2021) administered in a representative sample of schools in countries with different accountability policies (Chile, Norway, Spain). Teachers were asked to choose between different working scenarios that simultaneously varied in five characteristics. This design allows us to compare on a common scale the strength of each characteristic in explaining the preference for a given working scenario and studying teachers’ preferences over multiple dimensions.

4. Results
The results provide evidence on the extent to which extrinsic incentives compensate for adverse working conditions, such as struggling learning environments, unsupportive colleagues, or job precariousness. They also show how working environments, which foster the development of teaching skills, compensate for extrinsic incentives linked to test-based assessments.

5. Significance
This research contributes to existing research in several ways. First, it explores for the first time how financial incentives, considered simultaneously with other relevant work motivations, are perceived by teachers. Second, the experimental approach contributes to overcome the limits of direct questioning regarding the potential social desirability bias at stake. Third, as experiments are still underused in this research area, our methodological approach could inspire future research. Finally, from the policy point of view, it provides empirical inputs to the discussion on the policy implications of extrinsic incentives.

Authors

• Antonina Levatino, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

• Gerard Ferrer-Esteban, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

• Antoni Verger, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona