What principals think motivates teachers.

How did a graduate class of teachers and principal s come to explore what was really important to teachers? They had an idea that they all shared the same values (both teachers and principals) and would agree on what rewards teachers prize. Would administrators rate the motivation rewards the same way the teachers would? To find out, five schools were selected to participate in the study. That is, administrators and teachers from their building would rank order the perceived rewards of teaching, but with the administrators predicting teacher responses. The data suggest that of the five school administrators participating, one response matched teacher preferences exactly, one response did not match any of the teachers preferences and the other three responses were somewhere in between. Additionally the data indicate that viewed totally, the administrators predicted that the teachers would choose, "full appreciation of work done" followed by" "job security." while teachers generally chose "good pay" and" "good working conditions." Comments indicated that some of the principals felt they had gotten out of touch with their teachers. Some of the teachers indicated surprise that their administrators could predict the teacher responses with such accuracy.

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How did a graduate class of teachers and principals come to explore what was really important to teachers? They had an idea that they all shared the same values (both teachers and principals) and would agree on what rewards teachers prize. After further class discussion though, it became apparent that there was less agreement than originally thought.

First, it might be helpful to review some background on the subject of motivation. It has been researched quite extensively. When we speak of teacher motivation, we are talking about teachers as group members, not individuals. All groups have rules and etiquette, no matter how informal or small in size. The power of group norms in motivating workers was studied over sixty years ago in the Western Electric Studies. Most educators have heard of it by another name, the Hawthorne Studies. One part of the sizable research project was to determine how much illumination was needed to get maximum output from factory workers. The experimenters were perplexed when the subjects didn't respond in the predicted manner. It seemed that no matter how much or little illumination was provided, the more the worker produced. What the researches did not know, at that time, was that the workers were responding to their perceptions of the expectations of the experimenters and not to changes in the environment. The term, Hawthorne effect came from this series of studies and is widely misunderstood in educational circles. The misunderstanding occurs when people think that the studies established that merely paying attention to people and manipulating the environment increased worker motivation. It is much more than that. The workers in the Hawthorne Studies were responding to various psychological factors that motivated their behavior. For example, reacting to the expectation of others or being the focus of attention.

Owens (2001) states that the educational leader is an important part of the educational environment of the school. It is with this educational environment that the organization's members interact and therefore the principal can determine the nature and quality of the teachers' motivation. Little research has been done to examine teacher motivation in regards to what rewards they prize. Public perception of teaching usually includes the belief that all teachers are completely free to do whatever they want immediately after school dismisses at 3PM and have all summer off (never mind grading papers, lesson-planning and night courses in graduate school and most summers back at the university). What rewards do teachers find in teaching? To examine the values of teachers as group members, the Kovach study, from the field of business administration, was chosen as a model.

Kovach (1995) in a study involving 1000 employees wanted to shed some light on the question of why workers work and what an employer or supervisor can do to attain full productivity. The study, originally conducted in 1946 by other researchers was replicated in 1981 and then again in 1995 by Kovach. The study asked employees to rank order ten suggested rewards for work. Their employers were then asked to rank order the rewards the way they thought their employees would rank them. On each occasion, the employee and employer lists differed radically. All three studies showed that employers had very inaccurate perceptions of what motivated their workers. For example in one case, bosses thought that "money" was the chief motivator while in fact the workers chose the reward entitled, "interesting work."

AGraduate Course in Educational Leadership

A graduate class in basic educational administration thought the Kovach study had implications for educators. Would administrators rate the motivation rewards the same way the teachers would? To find out, five schools were selected to participate in the study. That is, administrators and teachers from their building would rank order the perceived rewards of teaching, but with the administrators predicting teacher responses. The schools were selected when their principals, students in my graduate class, volunteered their school and their teachers (you could call this Serious Research Flaw #1.) The administrators completed a questionnaire indicating how they thought their teachers would rank order the ten rewards of teaching. They then took the questionnaire back to their teachers to have them complete the form. No questions were asked about how they accomplished this (you could call this Serious Research Flaw #2.) The ten items contained in the modified survey instrument are contained in Table 1. (N= 5 principals; N=85 teachers).

Results

Or shall we say mixed results. The data suggests that of the five school administrators participating, one's responses matched teacher preferences exactly, one' s responses did not match any of the teachers preferences and the other three administrators were somewhere in between. Maybe it is as simple as some principals are more in tune with their teachers than others!

Another way of looking at the data (you could call this Serious Research Flaw #3) indicated that viewed totally, the administrators predicted that the teachers would choose, "full appreciation of work done" followed by "job security," while teachers generally chose "good pay" and "good working conditions." Comments indicated that some of the principals felt they had gotten out of touch with their teachers while some of the teachers indicated surprise that their administrators could predict the teacher responses with such accuracy. Some observations from item analysis are that very few teachers selected "involvement in decision making" or "freedom to select interesting topics teach." Although administrators predicted they would.

When I was a building principal, I valued any opportunity to increase my understanding of teacher attitudes and feelings. I wanted teachers to know that I cared about what they were thinking. This survey draws teachers and administrator together. More than one participant state that the survey was fun and seeing their administrator' s responses was very interesting. The administrators found the experience beneficial whether or not they had correctly predicted teacher choices of rewards.

I'm working on continuing the study by putting the questionnaire on-line. Administrators and their teachers could decide together to complete the survey on-line and discuss the results. Please contact me if you and your teachers would like help seeing how close you are to understanding teacher motivation and understanding each other.

References

Kovach, K. (1995). Employee motivation: Addressing a crucial factor in your organization's performance. Employment Relations Today, 22, 93-107.

Thomas Diamantes, Ed.D., Associate Professor, Educational Administrator, Department of Educational Leadership.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Thomas Diamantes, Associate Professor, Educational Administrator, Department of Educational Leadership, 3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy., Dayton, OH 45435-0001; Email: [e-mail]