measuring teacher motivation: a scale and findings from northern nigeria

A scale and findings from northern Nigeria

Measuring teacher motivation

Sept 2016

EDOREN 2

50% of grade-3 pupils could not name the first letter of their name

Only one in every ten grade-3 pupils demonstrated basic listening comprehension skills on a grade-1 level story

On average, a grade-3 pupil could name or sound out 6 letters in a minute

(Source: TDP 2014 baseline - Jigawa, Katsina, Zamfara)

Context: Low learning outcomes

EDOREN 37/12/2015

4Sept 2016

How teachers spend their time in a lesson

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Motivation in a programme theory of change

Teacher Development Programme in Nigeria: aims to improve teaching through teacher training, materials, ongoing support, ‘trainer in the pocket’

– Theory of change: TDP materials and support can improve teacher motivation by raising teacher self-esteem

– Suggested mechanism:

Sept 2016 © 2016 Oxford Policy Management Ltd

Teachers acquire some

new skills

Visible progress in students’

learning outcomes

Improved self-

esteem

More motivate

d

Work harder

Attend regularly

Attend training

and keen to learn more

Boosts / sustains the effect of a short training intervention through a self-reinforcing cycle

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Measuring motivation

3 main issues with the existing scales: Some motivation questions not appropriate for northern Nigeria context Some clearly relate to factors likely to influence motivation rather than the condition of

being motivated Often focused narrowly on self-efficacy / locus of control ideas:

– belief that something is within my control goal setting, activity choice, willingness to expend effort, persistence

We define teacher motivation as the

propensity of teachers to start and maintain behaviours that are directed towards fulfilling their professional goals, and in particular towards achieving better learning outcomes for the school’s learners

We combine self-efficacy-related items with ideas from elsewhere: Bennell (2004) ‘will-do’ vs. ‘can-do’ / Bennell and Akyeampong (2007) scale specifically for

use in developing countries Intrinsic Motivation Inventory: e.g. interest, enjoyment, usefulness, pressureSept 2016 © 2016 Oxford Policy Management Ltd

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Commonly scales mix up aspects from different theoretical frameworks Teacher Efficacy Scale


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A model of motivation for programme evaluations


TDP intervention

better pedagogic / content knowledge / skills

better interaction between teachers

can do:external factors less

limiting

better learning outcomes for

students

will do: more motivated,

engaged

Self-efficacy(external + internal efficacy)

intrinsic motivationcommitment

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Added complication: teachers can’t always read well


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Scale revised for use in subsequent surveysMost recent version: ESSPIN (Education Sector

Support Programme in Nigeria) - Enugu, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Lagos

This paper uses data from ESSPIN Composite Survey 3 (2016): 735 schools, 3588 teachers

We focus on northern states (Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano)

Sept 2016

Data and background

EDOREN 127/12/2015

13Sept 2016 © 2016 Oxford Policy Management Ltd

ESSPIN motivation scales

Several revisions leading to 4 factors, with good reliability:– satisfaction: the value I place on my role as a teacher (‘interest and

enjoyment’)– skills: the perception I have of my competences and skills as a a teacher

(≈can do / self-efficacy)– engagement: how engaged and committed I feel I am to my work as a

teacher (≈will do / pressure/tension)– collegiality: how I see the extent of commitment and collaboration among

my colleagues (≈teacher-teacher interaction)Cross-correlations

ItemsEAP reliability

Satisfaction Skills

Engage-ment

Satisfaction 6 0.83 1

Skills 12 0.88 0.65 1

Engagement 4 0.66 0.25 0.24 1

Collegiality 6 0.8 0.46 0.59 0.06

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Using the scales: research questions

How does teacher motivation vary geographically (rural/urban, by state) and between male and female teachers?

Does training (in-service and pre-service) influence teachers’ self-efficacy, engagement and satisfaction?

Are ‘skills’ (can-do) important for engagement (will-do)? Do teachers whose content knowledge is stronger assess their own scores

more highly? Are more ‘engaged’ teachers more active in their lessons? Do students with more motivated teachers learn more?



How does motivation differ by state?


… and by training, qualification, and sex?


Does teachers’ perceived ‘skills’ reflect their content knowledge?


Satisfaction and engagement are also strongly correlated with test scores in English and maths

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Explaining teachers’ motivation: regression analysis

(Sample: 1923 teachers. * p <.05)


Satisfaction Skills (I) Skills (II)

Engage-ment (I)

Engage-ment (II)

Kaduna 45.8* 18.0 10.6 52.3* 54.4*Kano 22.1* 19.5* 17.3 2.2 4.4

Rural -2.9 -7.2 -5.8 -19.0* -19.8*Female -11.1 -4.7 -4.1 9.9 9.4Training 0.7 -4.0 -4.3 9.5* 9.0*Qualified -9.6 4.8 3.5 4.6 5.2Years of experience -0.1 -0.3 -0.4 -0.1 -0.1English / maths test 0.1Skills -0.1*

R-squared 0.020 0.011 0.014 0.102 0.121

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Using teacher motivation to explain outcomes

We attempt to fit models to explain the following outcomes:– Teacher-level

Proportion of time teachers spend on ‘positive interaction’ (e.g. explaining rather than chanting)

Proportion of time teachers spend doing something (e.g. not just leaving students to copy from the board)

– School-level Average proportion of teachers absent each day Proportion of classes with teachers in them at start of school day

and after the morning break Motivation does not seem to influence these outcomes after controlling for

other school characteristics (rural/urban location, state)



Conclusions

Teacher motivation appears to be important, but measuring it is not easy Satisfaction and skills scales are worse in Jigawa than Kaduna and Kano Engagement is better in Kaduna than Jigawa or Kano Teachers in rural schools have particularly low engagement compared to

urban teachers Teachers who received in-service training are more engaged But overall, our models seeking either to explain teacher motivation or to

use teacher motivation to explain their behaviour, have limited predictive power

Unobserved factors may include:– Community support for teachers– Relationship with the head teacher– Salary and deployment policies

Teachers’ behaviour may be constrained by their knowledge / skills more than their attitudes

Thank you

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