Teaching is one of the professions that many and indeed probably even most people enter with a large measure of idealism. They seek out education as a profession not for the salary or the benefits (despite the belief of many non-teachers that teachers are primarily motivated by the long vacations) but because they feel that teaching is their vocation, their calling. And yet despite this initial strong motivation to teach, many teachers leave the profession after a short time, often after only a year in the classroom. For example, about twenty percent of new Vancouver teachers leave the profession after their first year (Richmond, 2005), which is about middling, with some regions losing up to fifty percent of their novice teachers after their first year (Richmond, 2005).
Such a high attrition rate is bad for everyone. It is bad for those new teachers who have put considerable time, effort, and money into teacher education programs and who find themselves unemployed, often bitter, and unsure what to do about their professional futures. It is problematic for schools, who must constantly recruit new teachers, thereby expending a great amount of institutional energy simply to stay in place. And it affects the education of students, who are faced with new teachers each year and so a lack of continuity as well as a lack of the expertise that more experienced teachers could offer. Clearly, Vancouver secondary teachers, schools, and students would all benefit from higher retention of teachers at all levels. But the problem of teacher retention affects not just new teachers (although it is worse for them) but all teachers, who may find themselves overwhelmed and burnt out at any stage of their careers.
So what would induce teachers to stay in the profession? And what would keep teachers who are in the profession happy enough so that they do not become burnt-out? The simple answer is that they would be more likely to stay if they were more motivated. Of course, at some level that answer is simply tautological: Motivation is key to retention as well as dedication in any profession. But I argue that the simplicity of the situation does not in any way negate its value. Teachers who are sufficiently motivated will stay in the profession.
So the question then becomes: How can teachers be motivated? Where would the locus of teacher motivation be? In programs of teacher education? From the school districts? From the schools? From the unions? Or does each teacher have to find sufficient motivation within herself or himself? Or what would be the appropriate combination of all of these factors? Another way of looking at this question would be to ask to what extent is teacher motivation a personal matter, something that can be inculcated and nurtured -- and sustained -- by the individual (with some help from a range of institutions) and to what extent must teacher motivation come about through structural changes and supports.
The following overview of structural problems in Canadian schools at large suggests that structural problems must at least be seriously considered when looking at ways to motivate teachers:
The real metaphor of mass public schooling is not the teacher as lighter of fires, or the teacher as planter and nurturer of beautiful flowers. It is the school as factory, the teacher as production worker (Whitehead, 2007).
I cannot imagine that many people enter the teaching professions with an eye towards becoming the analogue of a factory worker. At the same time, I find Whitehead's analysis to be an accurate one. Schools run as bureaucracies, as Canadian schools tend to be, are subject to a range of ills that dramatically and directly affect teacher motivation.
[Researchers have] pointed out man's inherent propensity to resist formalization, and impersonalization, and they showed the organizational "pathologies" that result from excesses in this direction. The dysfunctional consequences take various forms: the ossification of behavior, with the automatic rejection of all innovative ideas, the mistreatment of clients, increases in absenteeism, high turnover, strikes, and sometimes the subversion of the operation (Mintzberg, 1983).
Given this kind of suffocating environment (and this is indeed the kind of world in which many teachers spend their days) it is hardly surprising that many teachers leave the profession far earlier than they had intended to and those that stay find far lower rates of job satisfaction than they had hoped for.
What is, then, surprising is that many teachers do find ways to stay motivated about their jobs year after year. This thesis is an investigation of what factors help keep teachers motivated, including an examination of how different psychological models of motivation might be best employed to bolster teachers in their jobs. This project thus blends two different tasks to answer the essential questions that I am posing. The first task consists of gathering data to determine the specifics of the conditions for teachers, from their average age to what services schools and the government provide to support teachers. The second task for this research project is to examine the different theories of motivation. The final step is an integration of these two tasks. Such an integration should be helpful in understanding the current situation that teachers in the Vancouver schools face as well as -- and this is the more important of the two tasks, I believe -- facilitate the development of programs that will improve the situation for teachers in the future. The current state of public education in Vancouver is far from perfect, but it is also far from irredeemable.
1.2 Rationale for the Study
Traditionally scholarship is seen to be something abstract -- the collection and analysis of knowledge for knowledge's sake. And I agree that an examination of the world around us is an essential first step to scholarship for we cannot begin to analyze and interpret the world if we do not have the basic facts that we need. But I do not believe that scholarship should stop at the collection of knowledge -- or at least I do not believe that it must stop with the collection and analysis of knowledge. Rather, I believe that scholarship can be both "pure" -- in the sense that facts are gathered in an accurate and disinterested way -- and also be applicable, providing the information needed by a particular community to help them improve their lives.
Of course this kind of research -- which can be seen as providing a sort of quid pro quo to the subjects of the research -- can be problematic, depending on the nature of the subjects. (For example, one doesn't want to help pirates do their job better!) However, in the case of teachers and other stakeholders in the world of public education I believe that it is fully appropriate to pursue research that is scientifically rigorous but also can be used in vary practical ways by teachers. For the benefits of having highly motivated teachers in a school are widespread.
Not only do teachers who are motivated tend to find greater satisfaction in their own work (and this is something that they certainly deserve to have) but the sense of greater competence and agency leads them to be even better teachers (which leads in turn to a greater level of motivation, for the process is an iterative one). This benefits their pupils, of course, creating a positive ripple effect as each generation of students arrives and departs.
1.3 Research Questions
The topic of teacher satisfaction is a large and complex one and can be approached from a number of different perspectives and with a number of different emphases. I have chosen the following series of research questions to ensure that this project is sufficiently bounded. I have also chosen the following questions because they are consistent with the focus that I bring to this research and my assumptions about which are the key extrinsic and intrinsic variables to consider in assessing the level of teacher motivation in the Vancouver School District. In determining this focus I have combined my personal knowledge of the school district with background information available about the district from school and governmental sources along with research that has already been done in this area.
1.3.1The first question that I wish to answer is the most fundamental one: What is the level of teacher motivation among secondary school teachers in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada? Without an accurate sense of the baseline of motivation the rest of the research will be on shaky grounds.
1.3.2 The next questions follows directly from the first: Are there significant differences in levels of motivation among secondary school teachers working under the British Columbia District determined by their socio-demographic factors such as age, gender, marital status, education level, year of experience and present subject taught?
1.3.3 I am also interested in determining if there are significant differences in the level of motivation among secondary teachers working under the British Columbia School district due to collective bargaining agreements. Thus my next question is: How does the quality of union leadership affect teacher motivation?
1.3.4
Finally, I am interested in whether or not there is a trickle-down effect from leftist or rightist politics style at the provincial and federal levels.
1.3 Objectives
1.3.1 There are two major objectives for this research. The first is to compare the level of motivation among secondary school teachers under the Vancouver British Columbia School District in Canada by their socio-demographic and organizational factors. My hypothesis in advance of investigating this is that there are indeed demographic factors that will have a significant effect on overall levels of motivation, although I do not yet know what these may be and I am prepared (as any good researcher must be) to find that my initial ideas are wrong. For example, I believe that I will find that female teachers are, on the whole, more motivated than male teachers because it is still the case that women have fewer career paths open to them than men do and so they will be more willing to accept the problems within the teaching profession. (I am not arguing that they should accept such problems more willingly than do men, just that I believe that they will.) But I do understand that I may be entirely wrong in this initial assumption.
1.3.2 My second objective in carrying out this research, after having determined the levels of motivation among secondary teachers working under the Vancouver British Columbia School District, is to recommend the areas for improvement. If the level of teacher motivation can be improved (as noted above) then not only will the teachers find their jobs to be more rewarding, but students (and their families) and school districts will benefit as well. Indeed, such is the importance and power of public education that it is not an exaggeration to say that improving the motivation of teachers has beneficial effects on the whole of society.
1.4 Research Contributions
1.4.1 The primary contribution of this research is to provide a high level of detail about teacher motivation levels. One way to assess teacher motivation is to examine tracher attrition rates. While the phenomenon of high rates of teacher attrition is well-known, the specific mechanisms involved are not necessarily well understood. Or rather, the mechanics of how to address lack of teacher motivation are not sufficiently well understood to remedy the problems. Teaching can be a very isolating profession given that teachers spend the majority of their time with their students and not with other teachers, which means that often each teacher has to try to motivate himself or herself alone. By aggregating data on a number of different teachers, I hope to be able to demonstrate broad trends in teacher motivation that will allow each individual teacher to learn from collective wisdom.
1.4.2 The second research contribution that I wish to make is to help tease out the connections between teacher motivation and larger social forces. As noted above, teacher motivation tends to be framed as a problem of the individual. But while it is individual teachers who may face daily struggles with motivation, I believe that it is important to remember that no teacher is an island. Institutional levels of support from provincial and federal governments affect levels of teacher motivation, I believe, because the degree of resources that are available to teachers (including everything from funding for mentoring programs, to the provision of mental health services to teachers, to class size, etc.) affect their levels of motivation. This is an aspect of teacher motivation that is generally overlooked and so I propose to examine the important connections between teacher motivation and larger political and social trends.
1.5
(For you to do)
1.6 Operational Definitions of the Terms
Most of the terms that I am using in this research I apply in their commonsensical definitions. For example, when I refer to "schools," or "school districts" or "provincial" or "federal" government I am using these words in their everyday meaning. Other words I am using in nearly their most standard sense. For example, when I refer to "teachers" I mean not only classroom teachers but also other professional individuals who provide instruction in the classroom such as teacher aides. I exclude from the category of teaching those offering incidental instructional services (such as a parent who comes in to provide an hour's lecture on a career path, for example).
I have included substitute teachers in my definition of "teacher" although my focus is on those who are full-time staff teachers. This is not because I do not recognize the value of substitute teachers, who work under truly adverse conditions a lot of the time. However, I do believe that there are distinct differences between the motivations of substitute teachers and full-time teachers. I believe that it would provide very interesting results to compare and contrast the motivations of substitute and full-time teachers. However, for the purposes of this research I am emphasizing the motivation of full-time teachers while also considering the motivations of substitutes.
The primary term that I am using in this research that I do believe needs to be defined is that of "motivation" because this is a term that means scores of different things. I am taking what I call an eclectic approach to the idea of motivation in that I draw from a number of different models. I believe that motivation is not a homogeneous force in human nature but is a combination of different types of forces. One level of motivation exists on a behavioral level. (This is akin to some of the first formal psychological models of motivation, following work done by Pavlov and Skinner.) In this model, people do certain things because they are rewarded for that behavior and avoid doing other things because they are punished for that behavior. This is certainly an element of motivation for teachers, as it is for all people (Vroom, 1964). This is linked to biological models of motivation that argue that we tend to be motivated by physiological states, so that we act to (for example) reduce the physical signs of stress such as increased heart rate.
Nohria & Wilson (2001) define an essential element of motivation as being a part of a social group. In this model of motivation, which I also incorporate into this research, people tend to imitate positive role models because by doing so they increase the positive reinforcement that they get and feel to be more fully integrated into a group that is important to them.
I believe that there is also a cognitive element to motivation. By this I mean that while part of what motivates us may be (almost) purely biological and part may involve emotions and feelings of self-worth, another important part is how we think about and understand our world. Part of how humans in general stay motivated is by experiencing things that are new and therefore more interesting. As humans, our brains "like" to be given new data, new ways of looking at things, new problems to solve (McClelland, 1985).
I believe that this last element of motivation is generally not given sufficient attention in studies of teacher motivation. Because teachers are educators I believe that there may be assumptions that they are constantly learning new things. However, teaching tends to be far more repetition than it is an engagement with novelty. Because of this I believe that many teachers may begin to lose their motivation relatively quickly as they teach the same thing fur or five or six times a day and do so year after year.
1.7 Research Hypothesis
The study was designed to examine the overall level of motivation among secondary teachers under the Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada school system by adding both hygiene and job aspects such as recognition, responsibility, growth and advancement, work itself, supervision, interpersonal relationship, working condition, job type and salary.
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
This chapter presents an overview of the literature that is relevant to the current research, thus allowing my research and findings to build upon what has already been examined and analyzed by other researchers. This should -- I hope -- allow me to avoid unnecessary repetition and reiteration of well-established facts and models. This research has been organized in the following way:
2.1 Background of the Education system in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
2.2 General Overview of the Canadian people's belief of the education system in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
2.3 Contextual Study.
2.3.1 Historical Development of Teachers in Canada.
2.3.1.1 Teacher Certification Requirements in Canada.
2.3.1.2 Canadian Government Policy on Retaining Teachers.
2.3.1.3 Canadian Government Programs in supporting teachers in the work place.
2.3.1.4 Canadian Government programs for professional development for teachers.
2.3.1.5 Canadian Government Resource & Support Services for teachers to maintain quality working relationships with administration, students and community.
2.4 Background of Vancouver School District.
2.5 Significance of Motivation.
2.6 Concepts, Definitions and Theories of Motivation.
2.7 Use of independent and Dependent Variables in the Research
2.7.1 Independent Variables.
2.7.2 Organizational Factors.
2.7.3 Motivation Aspects
2.8 Measurement of Motivation
2.1 Background of the Education system in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
The Vancouver school system represents the complexity of Vancouver as a whole, which includes a range of cultural, linguistic, and educational communities. The school district is very diverse in terms of socioeconomic range, including "some of the most affluent and impoverished urban neighbourhoods in the country," a fact that "provides wonderful opportunities as well as serious challenges" (Vancouver School Board). The district provides services to 56,000 students in grades Kindergarten to Twelfth as well as providing educational services to Adult Education and Continuing Education students (Vancouver School Board).
The schools include both French immersion and Mandarin bilingual programs. The Vancouver schools also include a program, the Aboriginal Education Enhancement Agreement, that creates a special place for the children of the original peoples of the nation:
We acknowledge that Aboriginal cultures have a continuous and proud history of their own educational practices and the residential school system interrupted this cultural legacy. The partners to this Agreement collectively value all voices and cultures that have now contributed to create this document which seeks to enhance the educational future of all Aboriginal learners (Vancouver School Board).
In addition to programs that are based on cultural and linguistic criteria, the district also has a number of programs based on other criteria, such as the Montessori method, an arts-centered curriculum, and advanced and remedial programs.
Among the important indices for the district are the following:
Sixty percent of the students speak a language other than English at home
Four percent of secondary students are French Immersion learners
16% of students participate in a school meal program
126 languages are spoken by students in the district
7% of elementary and secondary students are special education learners
4% of secondary students are Aboriginal learners
2000 self-identified Aboriginal students representing 600 bands and nations attend Vancouver schools (Vancouver School District).
One very interesting aspect of the district is that it formally identifies "its" territory with the people who first lived here, noting that "Our schools reside on Musqueam and Coast Salish traditional territory."
As is true of other Canadian schools, school governance is a mixture of different levels of authority. Some decisions are made at the level of each school (and even within each school there are variations among classrooms) while other parameters are established by the district. A number of the decisions that affect education are made at the provincial level by the Ministry of Education while other determinations are made at the federal level by the Council of the Minsters of Education. Certain decisions regarding Aboriginal peoples are made by other sectors of the government.
2.2 General Overview of the Canadian people's belief of the education system in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Essential to understanding the way in which teachers interpret the meaning of their jobs and how they stay (or fail to stay) motivated about their work is an understanding of the place of education more generally within Canadian society. This should be a matter of commonsense: Individuals in a career that is highly valued by society at large will (all other things being equal) tend to be more highly motivated than individuals who are in a career path that is generally held in low esteem.
Research conducted by a number of means (including surveys and interviews) suggests that Canadians generally have a moderately positive attitude towards the public education system. A 2007 study by the Canadian Education Association detailed this attitude. (Established in 1891, the CEA is a bilingual, non-profit federal organization that connects educational leaders and researchers, teachers, students, and government leaders [Canadian Education Association]). The association's survey (conducted with 2,400 Canadians between January and May 2007) found that 45% of Canadians have "a great deal or quite a lot of confidence" in the public school system. (Canadian Education Association).
This does mark a dramatic drop of 31% from 1984 when over three-quarters of Canadians gave the highest marks to the school system. However, the CEA notes that this assessment places trust and belief in the public schools at a higher level than public trust and belief in other public institutions. This ranking relative to other aspects of public life is probably a more important one that the absolute assessment of schools for the purposes of this research. Teachers would, no doubt, like to have the public rank the school system as uniformly excellent.
However, teachers are of course aware of problems in the schools and do not expect members of the public to act as if there were no problems in the schools. Being held in higher esteem than other public sector workers, however, would seem to be a reasonable element of how teachers see their own worth to society and would thus serve as an important part of the total factors that influence teachers' self-esteem.
Perhaps even more important in terms of implications for teacher motivation is the fact that, according to this survey, 70% of Canadians are satisfied with the job that elementary and secondary teachers are doing (Canadian Educational Association). This is a very high approval rating and would therefore seem to be one of the factors that generally helps with teacher motivation. (It is only human to appreciate it when people in general tell you that you are doing a good job.) Strikingly, only 19% of Canadians report that they are satisfied with the job that their provincial government is doing in terms of educational policy. It is not clear how this finding might affect teacher motivation or job satisfaction (Canadian Educational Association).
Finally -- and this is an important part of the overall social attitude toward education and teachers that I believe must be considered in any rigorous study of teacher motivation -- A majority of Canadians are willing to pay for better schools:
This majority includes an equal number of adults with and without school aged children. From 1984 to 2007, the proportion of Canadians willing to pay more taxes for public education has increased from 46% to 56%, which is a result that challenges political claims that a majority of Canadians are in favour of tax cuts, at least as far as education is concerned (Canadian Educational Association).
These results should be generally encouraging to teachers.
2.3 Contextual Study
2.3.1 Historical Development of Teachers in Canada
Sheehan & Wilson (1994) note that the process of training and certifying teachers in British Columbia is slightly different from that in other provinces because of the passage of the Teaching Profession Act in 1987 which established "the BC College of Teachers as a professional body with jurisdiction over certification and discipline" (Sheehan & Wilson). Before this act teachers in British Columbia followed a path that was very similar to that in other countries with an Anglo-Saxon heritage (Sheehan & Wilson, 1994). Teachers in British Columbia had originally (like those in other parts of Canada as well as in the United States) attended Normal Schools (post-secondary institutions dedicated to training teachers) before they began to attend general universities. The act of 1987 to some extent reversed this process, sending teachers back to a specialized school (Sheehan & Wilson, 1994).
Ungerleider (1996) found that the act, and this establishment of the school has had the effect of creating certain structural forms of tension within the school district, creating:
… an ideological struggle between a teachers organization animated by the spirit of social reconstruction through education and a government animated by the spirit of unfettered individualism and entrepreneurial capitalism (Ungerleider, 1996).
Thus there has been in British Columbia (as in other parts of the country as well) a push-back against the model of school-as-factory that I described above. Ungerleider (1996) suggests that this has caused some increased day-to-day stress but has also I general helped teachers to feel empowered.
2.3.1.1 Teacher Certification Requirements in Canada
The process of teacher certification in British Columbia mirrors that of the process in other provinces except for the fact that all "teachers, administrators and superintendents employed in the province's kindergarten to grade 12 public school system must have a valid BC College of Teachers certificate." (BC College of Teachers). This requirement applies to the full range of teaching positions, including full-time, part-time, and teacher-on-call positions. Once a teacher has obtained a certificate from the BC College of teachers, she or he is required to pay an annual membership fee to maintain it.
Each applicant for a certificate is assessed in three different areas. These are the academic record of the person, both in terms of general education and in terms of specific teacher training, any relevant teaching experience, and the overall fitness of a person to work with children in a particular age group (BC College of Teachers).
Those who are assessed to be appropriate candidates for certification will have the following attributes: A BC grade 12 diploma or the equivalent, four years of post-secondary education, completion of an approved teacher education program, understanding of the Canadian education system, either English or French proficiency (depending on the language of instruction) and "a fit and moral character to work with children" (BC College of Teachers).
Individuals who do not meet these standards -- such as not having sufficient education -- will be asked to fill in the gaps in their experience and then reapply for a certificate.
2.3.1.2 Canadian Government Policy on Retaining Teachers
Much of the current retention efforts in the Canadian public school system (or rather in the provincial ministries of education, since the province is the level of government at which the majority of educational policy is made) focuses on initial teacher training. The theory behind this is that initial training can create strata of competence, skills, and confidences that will help a teacher in her or his career as a whole. One of the essential aspects of "initial teacher education (or ITE) is the installation of the ideal of lifelong learning (Gambhir etal, 2008).
Canadian educational officials, while increasingly focusing on early teacher education as an essential part of later efforts to retain teachers, are also asking broader questions about what teacher education programs (along with other elements of the system, such as Ministries of Education and school districts) understand to be the ideal teaching preparation. (A question linked, of course, to the question of what Canadian society conceives of the ideal teacher to be.)
The question of teacher retention is more nuanced than I have perhaps been suggesting here. School systems have a goal of retaining good teachers, not all teachers. If only poor teachers left the school system then there would in fact be essentially no problem with teacher retention. (At least there would be no major problem on the level of the institution; there would still be often significant problems for the individual.) The real problem for the educational system is that so many teachers leave the profession in the first year or so before it becomes clear whether or not they will become good teachers.
The ideal situation for school districts (and a closer-to-ideal situation for the individual teachers involved) would be a system that allows students to be retained for long enough so that teachers with significant promise will be kept in the system and supported and those whose skills are likely never to match up with the needs of the school system will be diverted into other fields.
Part of determining who will be able to turn into a good (and happy, motivated) teacher is a clear understanding of what it is that teachers are called on to do. At first this might seem to be an odd formulation -- of course it is clear what teachers do, they teach. They educate. But this is a tautological answer. "Teach" is the predicate for the sentence of what it is that teachers do, but we also need the direct object of that sentence. Teachers who will both serve their students well and will be able to stay motivated from year to year must be able to align their personal goals with those of the larger domain of Canadian education.
Teachers should create an atmosphere in which students are exposed to the ideals of:
Learning to learn, preparation for work, responsible citizenship and instilling values tend to underpin the broad purposes of education in Canada, yet the emphasis varies from province to province (Leithwood, Fullan, & Watson, 2003, cited in Gambhir etal, 2008).
Federal and provincial retention programs tend at the moment to be focused on creating teacher education programs that will instill in teachers the ability to work within a system that values the above ideals and goals. These retention programs tend also to include some sort of mentoring for new teachers to help retain them in the initial stages of their career. There is little support at all for the retention of veteran teachers.
2.3.1.3 Canadian Government Programs in supporting teachers in the work place
One of the most important forms of governmental support that offered to teachers is a range of peer-support systems. One of the findings of Lang & Scarfe (1986) was (not surprisingly, although one does wonder how often such concerns are actually incorporated into the design of peer mentoring programs) that there is no single type of appropriate mentoring programing, no one-size-fits-all peer program. They focused on a survey of different programs for First Nations and indigenous peoples teachers and found that the following elements are the ones most likely to help in terms of teacher retention and overall teacher motivation and satisfaction with this group of teachers:
An off-campus site for the program to lower any stigma teachers might feel in seeking help
Group counseling rather than individual counseling to help teachers feel less isolated
Having both formal events and informal social events
Making explicit connections between the goals and ideals of the teaching profession and traditional tribal values (Lang & Scarfe, 1986).
Other peer-to-peer mentoring groups exist across the country and have in general proved to be useful.
Another level of support given by the government to teachers is one that is often not seen as providing support since it is so very much business-as-usual. There is an almost dizzying array of resources available to teachers designed to make their jobs easier in terms of content and classroom strategies. The most obvious thing to think about when considering government support of teachers is mentoring programs or something more formal like mental health services. But it is also important to give credit to programs that provide specific content and lesson plans to teachers. This form of support can reduce the daily stress in a teacher's life as well as providing innovative material that will help keep motivation high (as noted above).
Typical among the governmental programs that provide academic support for teachers is the Virtual Museum Canada, which supplies lesson plans on such topics as: Four Iroquois Kings Visit London; Les Iroquoiens; Now and Then: Pioneer Times and Today's Canada; The New Brunswick Logging Tradition (Virtual Museum Canada).
In a similar vein, there are federal and provincial guidelines for content at each level and for each subject of education. These can be seen both to help and in other ways to hinder teacher motivation. These standards help provide a foundation to the educational process and can be seen to set boundaries so that there are limits to the amount of knowledge that teachers are expected to convey to their students -- an essential aspect of helping to keep the job from seeming overwhelming to teachers, especially novice ones.
However, standardization (and this has become increasingly apparent in the United States as a result of the federal No Child Left Behind Act that has significantly increased levels of standardization in U.S. education) also can have significant costs in terms of teacher motivation. As cited above, and as I will detail below, reducing the level of novelty and the chance for teachers themselves to learn can have a highly detrimental effect on teacher motivation. Seen from this perspective, teaching standards are very much a double-edged sword.
2.3.1.4 Canadian Government programs for professional development (for teachers.
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There is some variation across the country in terms of the programs that the government offers in terms of professional development for teachers. This is to be expected since the provincial government has more authority in terms of educational policy than does the federal government. However, the criteria for support of teachers' development are relatively similar; this program of professional support designed by the Ontario government is typical. It focuses on a number of different strategies. These include (in addition to mentoring, as described above):
* Continuous on-the-job training in the areas that teachers find most stressful, including classroom management and working in a collaborative way with parents
* On-going training in the area of working with non-native English speakers, Aboriginal students, and special-needs students
* More extensive orientation of new teachers
* New systems of ongoing evaluation of teachers that allows for more accurate feedback to teachers as well as to the school board to ensure board members that each new teacher has the necessary skills (Ontario Ministry of Education).
Owston (1995) outlines another of the ways in which federal and provincial governments can and do provide in terms of professional support for teachers. Specific to the Ontario school system, the program of "additional qualification" programs has analogues across the country. These formal programs are attached to the teacher's certificate so that he or she is described both as a certificate holder as well as a professional who has completed certain additional work. Among the subjects that teachers can achieve additional training in are the following: Science education, music in the classroom, adult education, teaching Native children, etc. Teachers must be certified before taking additional qualification classes so that all of those enrolled in these classes have the same basic skills and knowledge, ensuring that the classes do not have to be taught at too elementary a level (Brock University).
Other support services offered through different districts or provincial governments include support for expanding teachers' computer literacy. This can be a highly important form of professional development since improved computer skills are not an end in themselves but serve as pathways to a whole range of other possible forms of professional development. Having access to a wider range of computer-based information and connections allows teachers to make connections with other teachers, thus reducing the isolation that so many teachers feel in their work. Increased cybernetic qualifications also help teachers in gathering new classroom skills, which allows them to pursue their own professional development.
In general, the professional development services offered to teachers in Canada can be broken down into two types. Some -- like the additional qualification programs -- provide very specific sets of skills or knowledge that teachers can use immediately in the classroom. Others -- such as providing mechanisms that allow teachers to increase their computer skills or that help them in acquiring fluency in a secondary language -- have less immediate benefit in terms of professional development but give teachers tools that they can use in long-term strategies for continuing to gain new skills and information to use in the classroom.
2.3.1.5 Canadian Government Resource & Support Services for teachers to maintain quality working relationships with administration, students and community
The Canadian government along with the provincial governments is concerned that teachers are able to maintain good working relationships with the other stakeholders in the educational process. Being able to maintain open and fruitful communication with students along with administrators and members of the community helps reduce stress for the individual teacher, helps improve the overall process of education, and ensures that the overarching goals of schools and the educational hierarchy are in line with the changing needs of each community.
Support for creating a good relationship between teachers and communities begins with the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) program, as Gambhir etal (2008) note:
All initial teacher education in Canada is currently university-based and takes place in faculties of education. More than 55 universities graduate 18,000 new teachers each year. They tend to be research based academic programs of learning complemented with mentored field experiences in schools and the community.
Establishing connections to the community from the very first phases of teacher education has long-lasting consequences and is especially important in British Columbia where the educational system tends to lean towards progressive claims to social justice (Ungerleider, 1996).
Connections to the community exist not only between teachers and the community but between administrators and the community as well (and thus also between teachers and administrators, finishing the other side of this triangle). An important part of the way in which government educational officials support good communication between the educational establishment (and especially teachers) and the community at large is a push to reach out into different communities (and especially the Aboriginal community) to recruit teachers to begin with. Drawing teachers from different sub-communities helps to create long-standing relationships between teachers and local communities. The following describes outreach programs like this:
Some community-based distance ITE programs are designed to serve remote locations or marginalized groups. Several provinces have developed specialized programs for Aboriginal teacher education. These programs may include strong community-based components or protected admissions from colleges into ITE. They also offer seminars located in the remote communities as opposed to the university centres (Gambhir etal, 2008).
A task well-begun is half done, so the axiom tells us, and the study cited above as well as others suggests that this is indeed true in terms of allowing teachers to connect with communities: Teachers who begin their careers connected to the world that surrounds the school campus have a much easier time maintaining ties with the community than do teachers who begin their careers without any of the advantages of such a priori connections.
A survey of the websites of school districts across the country suggest that administrators understand the importance of good communication between themselves and their teaching staffs. However, a survey of sites that cater to teachers as well as research on this area presents a very different picture: Teachers are generally not very happy with the lack of communication in this arena and indeed believe that very little is being done to improve the situation, as McConaghy (1993) summarizes:
Another major dissatisfaction cited by many teachers was their sense of powerlessness. They felt that they were not part of the decision-making process. Only one-third of the teachers felt that they were able to influence decisions that directly affect them, yet virtually all principals reported that they actively seek staff participation in school policies.
2.4 Background of Vancouver School District
2.5 Significance of Motivation
I have been discussing the importance of motivation for teachers in a somewhat indirect way up to this point, essentially assuming that there is a universal accord that high levels of (positive) motivation are important to teaching success -- success both for the teacher in terms of personal fulfillment and success for the student in terms of educational achievement. However, I have not yet spelled out in detail either what exactly I believe motivation to be (although I began to suggest this in the above section on definition of terms) or why I believe that motivation is so important in assessing the success of an educational system.
In the next sections I will provide a substantial amount of information on different models of motivation while also creating a model of my own that synthesizes the aspects of each of the models created by others so that I have a model that is individualized to the research at hand. However, I will begin here with a very simple, stripped-down version of what I mean by the term "motivation." Based on Maslow's 1943 definition, I view motivation as being a quality that people possess that allows them both to initiate and to continue pursuing an activity.
It should be clear from this definition (and this point is suggested by Wahba & Bridgewell, 1976) that the above definition of "motivation" is a neutral one in terms of ethics and morality. This is, I realize, to some extent a departure from Maslow (or rather a tangent), but I am focusing here on the centrality to Maslow's model of the urgency of our human desire to establish and to reestablish homeostasis. What is homeostatic for each individual is not necessarily a balance of goodness. Motivation in and of itself is not good. Motivation, like all forms of energy, must be focused in the right direction.
2.6 Concepts, Definitions and Theories of Motivation
There are scores -- probably hundreds, if not actually thousands -- of theories of motivation, but they can be broadly classified into several groups. In this section, I will provide an overview of these broad groups before looking in detail at some of the models that are most relevant to the issue of teacher motivation in the Vancouver School District. Given that the idea of motivation is central to this research I have attempted to be as precise as possible in defining a concept that means such very different things to different researchers. Our ideas about motivation reflect our larger ideas about human nature (indeed I would argue that our understanding of the concept of motivation is often very close indeed to our understanding of the broader concept of human nature as a whole.)
Central to any definition of motivation, I believe, must be the idea of goal-oriented behavior (Baumeister & Vohs, 2004, among many others). Another way of understanding this most basic aspect of motivation is that motivation is a vectored quality: It has both energy and direction. Motivation can never be simply potential (although it can certainly contain a great deal of potential within it). Rather, it always has to have at least some kinetic elements to it, some launching of its energy into one direction or another (Bandura, 1997). So far this definition seems very straightforward and certainly commonsensical: We all have experience from our own lives of wanting something and taking actions so that we can achieve the goal of obtaining it.
But the above model of motivation, while I believe it to be an accurate one, is also only a gloss of the topic, for it fails to analyze certain important aspects of motivation. The first of these is the concept of need or desire. Motivation is activity in the direction of fulfilling a need or a desire, true, but where do those needs and desires come from? We can answer that with an initial list of very basic needs. Humans can be seen to be motivated (in the most basic model) by just two things: the desire to increase pleasure and the desire to reduce or eliminate pain (Deci & Ryan, 1985). I do not think that many people would disagree with the broad outlines of this statement: Our own personal experience tells us that we are motivated to increase pleasure and decrease pain. However, there is obviously a great deal that is left out of this model. It is so simple that it almost seems to have nothing to do with organisms as complicated as are humans. The above description of motivation might well be applied to paramecia.
I believe that the most useful and appropriate model of human motivation is one that exists in a series of layers. The conditions of each layer must be met before the next one can be considered. (This is, of course, a great deal like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, one of the models that I will be exploring in the next section.) So I will posit that this idea -- that we are motivated to increase pleasure and reduce pain -- is the basis for all human motivation. It is a necessary but not in any way sufficient explanation for the way in which human motivation works (Mathes, 1981).
An aside here. Any philosophical discussion of the nature and texture of human motivation must include at least a nod in the direction of behavior that seems to violate this most basic assumption -- that humans try to minimize pain and increase pleasure. What about masochists, for example? This is, of course, a difficult question to answer if one is being absolutely honest. The pat reply is simply that some people like to be hurt and so that they (i.e. masochists) are in fact acting in accord with the model of motivation that I have laid out above: They are acting in a way that increases their pleasure even if the same thing done by (or to) someone else would result in a distinct increase in pain rather than pleasure.
And yet, even though this is the obvious answer and one that makes rational sense (for I do honestly believe that humans act to increase their pleasure while trying to eliminate experiences and sensations that they dislike) I still cannot on a visceral level understand why and how human definitions of what is painful and what is pleasurable can be so very different from individual to individual. Given that this is tangential to the topic here, all I can say is that this must simply be the case: People act in ways to increase positive feelings and decrease negative ones, and that only the individual concerned can determine what is pleasurable and what is painful.
The next important aspect of any model of motivation that I would like to address is that of social approval -- or the aspect of motivation that we may loosely label morality or ethics (Murray, 1943). Simply put, people are motivated to act in ways that prompt other people to approve of them. Another way of putting this (and here we are back at the most basic level of our model of human motivation) is that we seek to be seen as moral and ethical because doing so brings us increased pleasure in the form of the approval of others. This should in no way be dismissed as an inconsequential aspect of human motivation: The approval of other people can be a very fierce instigator of motivation (Van de Ven, 2001). This is especially true in smaller groups (Lupfer & McDavid, 1963) such as would occur in a school site setting.
Another way to look at this aspect of motivation is to label is as the desire to conform. Describing it as such is likely to produce a relatively negative response, since conformity is rarely seen as a personal virtue. However, it would be naive to act as if a great deal of what humans do in terms of motivation arises from our desire to be approved of by others -- and it would be equally naive to act as if a large measure of what gains the approval of others is not our being like them in important ways.
Beginning with the most basic aspects of human motivation -- to increase the positive and reduce the negative -- I have added a layer of qualification, which is that often what makes something positive (and therefore increases our motivation to pursue it) is that other people will approve of whatever it is that we are doing. Moreover, I have argued that very often what prompts such social approval is our own conformity to the beliefs of others. (Of course this is not universally true: We may well approve of someone who acts in ways that we ourselves wish to do but refrain from for various reasons, or we might approve of someone who acts contrary to our own tendencies but who is clearly acting in accord with her or his principles.)
A related aspect of my model of motivation is that people are specifically motivated to act in ways that other people will see as being altruistic, and that -- beyond this -- certain kinds of people are in particular motivated to act in ways that will make them appear to be altruistic. (This should not be construed to suggest that the people in question are not in fact also being altruistic but rather that they may derive pleasure, and therefore increased motivation, both from the altruism itself along with deriving pleasure and therefore increased motivation from other people's assessment of their actions as altruistic (Batson, 1991).
Having other people approve of us is an excellent way for us to become more motivated -- and it's important to emphasize that there is nothing in any way inappropriate or devious about this dynamic (Wright, 1995). Parents, physical therapists, nutritionists, soccer coaches, CEOs and diplomats all use this dynamic to perfectly legitimate ends -- and do so quite effectively. What is key here -- in terms of the overall scope of this research -- is to find a way to incorporate this impulse (an increase in motivation tied to the positive social regard of others especially vis-a-vis an attribution of altruism) into the educational system in a way that will feel organic.
Teachers, along with all other groups of humans with at least average intelligence, are perfectly capable of recognizing when they are being manipulated and will tend to react badly in such situations. This is the reason that many attempts to motivate teachers (and other workers) that put on a very public display of appreciation that is clearly calculated to convey approval tend not to be highly effective. Cutesy notes on apple-shaped paper decrying: "You're the #1 Teacher" (and related activities) are not likely to be very effective in terms of increasing teacher motivation because such actions are clearly manipulative and inauthentic.
Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman (2009) found that attempts to link workplace motivation to overtly packaged programs (such as obviously pre-fab certificates and similar gimicks) tend to reduce rather then increase motivation. Employees who receive no overt praise will no doubt be disappointed and look for acknowledgement of their value, but they may read the absence of authentic praise as an oversight that will at some point be remedied. However, workers who are given what they perceive to be inauthentic praise (especially inauthentic praise concerning their altruism) are likely to lose motivation because they can no longer believe that what they believe to be authentic praise will be forthcoming (Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 2009).
People are motivated to do something either because of things that occur entirely within themselves (or at least this is the case for those who believe in intrinsic motivation, which I will detail below) or because of an interaction between internal and extrinsic or external factors. At some level motivation -- like needs -- is very simple. As humans we are motivated to make the world better. But what we consider to be "better" can be very opaque indeed -- both to ourselves as well as to others.
Maslow's Needs Hierarchy Model
Perhaps the best known of all models about human needs (which is allied to but not, of course, exactly the same as a model of human motivation). (Although it is worth noting that when Maslow first introduced his model he referred to it as a "model of human motivation." ) (Maslow, 1943). His model is fundamental to my research here in two ways. First, that it informs my overall model and, at least as important, that it is a relatively basic one. That is it explains in very general terms why humans want what they want and thus why they are motivated to take some actions. Thus my model will also rely on refinements of this model to explain the particularities of teacher motivation. Maslow's hierarchy theory provides several layers of motivational forces (Wahba & Bridgewell, 1976).
Maslow's overarching assumption about what underlies human motivation is that humans are pushed to act in certain ways because of underlying needs (Maslow, 1954). This might seem to be so obvious that there are no other possible models, but -- as I shall demonstrate as I describe other models of human motivation -- Maslow's basic model is only one of the possible models (Goble, 2004). Perhaps the best way to explain this model is to use an analogy from chemistry. In a needs-based model, humans can be seen as neutral (i.e. balanced) atoms (Maslow, 1943). Then something upsets this balanced state (which is also called homeostasis). For example, a person becomes thirsty or scared. Thus a person is missing something that must be replaced through a certain set of actions. Motivation arises as the result of this lack and the person attempts to recover the balanced state in the same way that an atom that has been turned into an ion seeks to return itself to a neutral state (Maslow, 1971).
Maslow added a number of details to this basic model because he recognized that not all needs are equal: This is why he created a hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1954). It is worth noting that Maslow's research was based not on abstract theorizing (as had been the case with earlier psychologists like B.F. Skinner) but on large data sets derived from his works with a range of subjects (Maslow, 1954). Maslow's hierarchy is almost always represented as a pyramid with the most primary needs at the bottom, although it is also sometimes inverted so that it resembles a funnel, with the primary needs at the top (Goble, 2004).
(Learning Center, 2009)
These primary needs are the ones that Maslow calls physiological needs (Maslow, 1943). Most of us would agree that these in fact are the most basic of human needs: breathing, water, food, sleep, sex, excretion, and homeostasis (a generalized category that applies to all physiological processes, such as having enough iron in the body to produce red blood cells and enough calcium to keep the heart rhythm intact). In specifying these as the most basic needs Maslow was not describing anything that was not (of course) already known. (Given the choice between a million dollars and oxygen, we would choose oxygen.) What was innovative about Maslow's model was his insistence that human motivation arises when these basic needs are not met. And -- moreover -- that "higher" needs will be set aside until the basic needs are met (Maslow, 1954; Maslow, 1971).
While we might all agree that these are indeed the most basic needs, we might not initially see what they have to do with workplace motivation (Maslow, 1943). None of us expects, for example, to get more oxygen or purer water if we do a good job. But, in fact, the meeting of basic needs is highly relevant to workplace motivation (Maslow, 1971). If a worker is not given enough time to eat a nutritious lunch, or time to get a drink of water whenever desired, or time to use the restroom, then his or her most basic needs are not being met. And it is certainly the case that sometimes teachers' days are so busy that they do not have the time to take care of their basic needs (Goble, 2004).
And when this is the case -- when basic needs are not being met -- people are motivated (Maslow argues) to meet only those basic needs (Maslow, 1943). When these most basic needs are met, an individual can move on to attempt to satisfy issues surrounding safety. Again, this level of needs is one that is fundamentally relevant to the workplace. It includes a sense of health, personal financial security, and protection against accidents and physical harm. Teachers are often concerned about these exact issues. If they are not being paid enough to meet their basic physiological needs or do not have sufficient health insurance to protect against possible catastrophic illness, or feel that their workplace is not safe, then they will be motivated to address these issues alone (Goble, 2004).
I should point out here that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a person's being motivated to satisfy more basic needs before moving to satisfy "higher" or more abstract needs (Maslow, 1943). This tendency to see to the most basic of our needs first arises from the fact that we live in physical bodies and as such are subject to the same needs as other living creatures (Maslow, 1954).
The third level of needs (and motivation) that Maslow outlines are social needs such as friendship and intimate relationships (Maslow, 1971). Given that many people's most important friendships come from the workplace, this is a relevant issue to teachers' motivation. In general, I believe that many and probably most teachers feel that they have a supportive community with other teachers and perhaps within their union. However, if the first two layers of needs are not being met, then workers (including teachers) will not have the motivation to make social connections, which will limit their overall motivation (Maslow, 1943).
The highest level of human motivation, according to Maslow, is our need for activities that build a sense of esteem. (This is sometimes described as the motivation to work towards a sense of belonging.) (Maslow, 1971). When we think about workplace motivation, we generally think about this level of need. And it is true that workers are motivated to receive various forms of praise in the workplace. Getting acknowledged as teacher of the year, for example, can be a very powerful force motivating a teacher to work harder. Being given financial incentives can also increase motivation (Maslow, 1971). But this level of need can be met in less formal ways as well (Maslow, 1943). Being well regarded by other teachers, by one's students, by members of the community (especially family members of one's students) are also things that a teacher would be motivated to work towards.
Finally, Maslow argued that when all other needs are met, humans will reach toward what he called "self-actualization" -- the motivation to become the best possible version of ourselves (Maslow, 1954: Goble, 2004). This is the level of motivation that many people enter the teaching profession hoping to concentrate on, but far too few get to spend most of their energy on.
Alderfer's ERG Theory
Clayton Paul Alderfer expanded and -- depending on one's perspective -- either simplified or refined Maslow's theory. Or, rather, it is clear that he simplified it; the question is then whether this simplification was an improvement or not. I believe that there is no categorical answer to this: For some instances or data sets Alderfer's model is better, for others Maslow's is. And in some cases -- and this is true for this research -- a combination of the two is better.
Alderfer collapsed Maslow's categories so that his most basic ones (the physiological and safety needs) became Alderfer's "Existence" category (Alderer, 1980). Maslow's intimacy and esteem categories became Alderfer's "relatedness" category. Alderfer's "growth" category replaced Maslow's self-actualization level. In addition to collapsing Maslow's categories, Alderfer also made more explicit something that was at most implied in Maslow's model. Alderfer argued that people would "regress" (Alderfer, 1980). If an individual could not meet her or his needs in a higher level, then that person "regressed" to a lower level and dramatically increased efforts at that lower category. This can be seen as a sort of compensatory strategy: If one cannot achieve the top goal, then the individual tries to make do with a double helping of the secondary goals.
(http://tabacco.blog-city.com/maslows_hierarchy_of_needs__physiological_level_1_to_selfact.htm )
The above table spells out the ways in which the two models are connected both to each other and to the personality types of introvert and extrovert. This table is especially useful in terms of helping individuals see where they might fit in terms of the work place. All individuals have basic needs and (according to both Maslow and Alderfer) seek to meet those needs before they can do anything else in a focused way (Alderfer, 1980). But what we might call the content of human motivation and need differs. So while an introvert needs to have her basic needs met, she will visualize these needs in a relatively solitary way. To simplify this concept to its very basic level, an introvert will do what she needs to get food for dinner. But an extrovert seeking to meet the same needs will seek company for dinner with equal fervor as he or she seeks the food (Alderfer, 2005).
This is an important distinction that Alderfer helped to cement in his analysis of human motivation. Not this particular distinction between introversion and extroversion (although it is in itself important) but the insistence on the fact that while all humans are motivated to meet their needs in a certain order. But how each of us defines "basic" or "fundamental" needs n different ways. While it is intuitive that at the "higher" levels of motivation (such as self-actualization) there would be differences among different people, for actualization is a rather abstract concept (Alderfer, 1980). We can easily understand that some people will feel completed by singing in an amateur choir, others only when they sing with the Met, and still others when they learn to speak a foreign language (Alderfer, 2005).
But what Alderfer argues is that there are important distinctions in terms of human motivation (because of the differences that we experience in our understanding of basic needs), we are unified in our tendency to regress to lower needs when our attempt to satisfy higher needs is frustrated (Alderfer, 1980). So what is the relevance of this model of human motivation to the current research? The following table helps to explain the ways in which Alderfer divided the layers and levels of human motivation. If we read across this table across we can better understand the ways in which this model of human goal-seeking and motivation can be translated from the abstract into the particularities of a workplace.
http://tabacco.blog-city.com/maslows_hierarchy_of_needs__physiological_level_1_to_selfact.htm
If we begin at the bottom layer of existence we can see immediately that there are clear implications for the work place. While when we are being our better selves we would most probably like to believe that we can appreciate the rewards that others receive without begrudging them these rewards or without secretly assessing whether what other people receive is being directly deducted from our own portion (Alderfer, 2005).
But, when we are being honest, it is probably most often the case that we do make such internal calculations. We say to ourselves, "So-and-so just got a 10% raise. That means there's less money for me to get a raise." This might be dismissed as paranoia except for the fact that it is in large measure true: The budgets of school districts are in fact limited and resources dedicated in one direction cannot be used somewhere else. Thus below the authentic camaraderie that exists among teachers, there are stresses that parallel the ways in which resources are dedicated. I will come back to the implications for this in a moment.
The next level up for Alderfer is his category of "relatedness" as a force for human motivation. This is an important vector for motivation for many teachers, I believe, who value their friendships with other teachers and a shared sense of collective purpose (Alderfer, 2005). To be a teacher is to be a part of a team. The fact that teachers in many cases feel beleaguered (unappreciated by the students, the administrators, the parents, or some combination of all of these three) often actually increases this sense of community. In general teachers are motivated to form strong communal ties and to feel a significant amount of reward from these connections. Teachers who have a high sense of relatedness tend to be highly motivated overall.
But, if we follow Alderfer's model, we can see how when higher-level needs are not met, lower-level needs tend to interfere with the motivation to pursue higher level needs (Alderfer, 1980). Thus while teachers are motivated to make connections, they may be prevented from doing so by competition for resources (Alderfer, 2005). Divisions among teachers -- between different departments, between new and established teachers, between male and female teachers -- can prevent authentic relationships from being made. And when this happens, teachers will revert to the "existence" level of needs, trying to assure for themselves the largest possible piece of the time.
This focus on the "existence" level has the unfortunate effect of tending to put up even more barriers among teachers as they focus on what many will come to see as a zero-sum game struggle over resources (Alderfer, 2005). Thus this can become an iterative cycle in which teachers struggle over resources because they feel blocked in meeting their needs for connectedness and their motivation to become more connected is increasingly blocked by their struggle for resources (Alderfer, 1980).
The same dynamic exists at the next level of Alderfer's model, that of "growth." When teachers are blocked from achieving their goals of meeting connectedness needs, they become more focused on the "existence" levels (Alderfer, 2005). This makes it even harder for teachers (or any other worker in an analogous position) to be motivated to reach for the goals at the "growth level." Ironically (under Alderfer's model) teachers who were able to concentrate on the highest goals would find themselves both highly motivated and much happier since the goals at this level are fundamentally satisfying in part because they are precisely the kinds of goals that bring people into the teaching profession. But they may become blocked at lower levels. Thus Alderfer's model suggests that teachers (and workers in similar positions) are caught in something like a Catch 22 (Alderfer, 2005).
This model is a useful one in that it allows us to see why some teachers seem to get stuck, to get ensnared, in struggles over the basics and losing their motivation to reach the highest goals of the profession that had originally drawn them in. I believe that the most useful aspect of these two models -- Maslow's and Alderfer's -- is that they underscore the fact that human motivation is not a homogeneous, undifferentiated force or drive but must be considered to be a complex and stratified aspect of human nature.
McClelland's Acquired Needs Theory
Davis McClelland's model follows in the mode of Maslow and Alderfer while at the same time taking a rather dramatic turn. McClelland argue that for all people humans are dominated by three needs. (Thus his model is also sometimes referred to as the "Three-need theory.) The importance of his theory is twofold (McClelland, 1961). The way in which he categorized basic human motivation is intrinsically interesting. But there is also the important addition in this model that needs are acquired or learned rather than innate. Maslow and Alderfer do not explicitly focus on the fact that the needs that they outline are innate, but the purport of their models is that humans come into the world with the needs that they outline and in the order or hierarchy that they have delineated (McClelland & Burnham, 2008).
I will begin my examination of his model with a description of the three needs that he sees as central to human nature and human motivation. McClelland believed that while all humans were motivated to fulfill each of these three needs, we each balance these three needs differently, so that while some people are highly motivated to achieve their goals others are much more highly motivated to have important relationships in their lives (McClelland, 1961). Why some people are more motivated to have one need fulfilled and others a different one is a complex one. McClelland seems at least to believe that the major impetus for why each one of us needs (or believes that we need) power rather than relations (or vice versa) arises from our personal experiences, although he does not preclude the possibility that there are also innate elements in our make-up that shape our motivations (McClelland, 1961).
McClelland argued that one of the three prime motivators of human nature is what he referred to as the need for achievement or N-Ach. This need is, obviously the motivation to achieve what is important to the person. However, there is an other element to McClelland's N-Ach category, which is that this motivation has in it the idea of success. And while success can be defined in purely internal terms, it tends not to be (McClelland & Burnham, 2008). For example, a person might decide that she wants to run and complete a marathon because she has been reading inspirational stories about runner. So she trains and enters -- and indeed completes -- a marathon. This can be as an internally defined motivation in terms of N-Ach category (McClelland & Burnham, 2008). However, it is almost necessarily the case that as she runs the race, she begins to compare her pace and effort against other runners: She begins to define success not in terms only of her own goals and motivations but also in terms of other people's performance. (Of course, many people are motivated to begin with by a concept of success that is defined vis-a-vis others.)
Another very important aspect of McClelland's model (and an aspect of his model that sets it apart from those of Maslow and Alderfer) is that McClelland understood that both goals and motivation are influenced (often to a fundamental degree) by the culture in which a person is raised and lives (McClelland & Burnham, 2008). This aspect of his model has important implications for my own research. In a culturally diverse workplace such as exists in the Vancouver School District there will be a variety of differing motivations depending on both individual preferences and experiences as seen through the filter of differing cultures (McClelland, 1961).
McClelland's further defined people motivated toward the fulfillment of the goal of N-Ach as the kind of person who sets reasonably goals -- goals that are sufficiently high to challenge the individual but that -- with a high but not impossible level of effort -- can be achieved. (In other words, a psychologically well balanced person, one who wants to extend herself or himself to the extent of his/her limits, but then to be rewarded for these efforts.) (McClelland & Burnham, 2008).
McClelland's understanding of this form of human motivation (as well as of his other two categories) is both psychologically more astute and more refined than that of Maslow or Alderfer. An important aspect of this psychological acuteness is that he understood that a person will not feel any sense of accomplishment if he/she think that success is unearned (McClelland, 1961). And a major barrier to feeling that success is earned is the feeling that luck -- or fate -- played a greater role than one's own effort. Thus an important part of N-Ach is that the person feels that there was no significant amount of luck (McClelland, 1961).
Another aspect of this form of human motivation is that people who are primarily motivated towards achieving goals defined as N-Ach are also highly motivated towards working with other people whom they considered to be high-achievers who are motivated by similar goals. McClelland also argues that people who are primarily motivated to achieve goals do not need praise or outside inducements (McClelland, 1961). I am not personally convinced by this. While I do believe it to be true that some people need less (and sometimes significantly less) external motivation than do others, I do not believe that anyone is entirely unaffected by honest and authentic motivation.
The next category of human goal-seeking or motivation, according to McClelland is the need for power, or N-Pow. In general, this can be seen as the motivation to lead other people in concerted efforts so that the individual believes that he or she has made an impact in an arena that is important to the individual (McClelland & Burnham, 2008). This motivation can actually be acted out in two different ways, one much more benign than the other. The less benign of these forms of N-Pow is the desire to have power over others (McClelland, 1961). We are all aware from our own experiences that there are many, many people in the world who are motivated by exactly such a dynamic: They are interested in power not because it allows them to do good (or even because it allows them to do evil) but simply because it gives them a sense of power over others. People who are motivated in this way can be highly disruptive in any workplace, and perhaps especially in a workplace like that of a school in which cooperation is so important.
This leads us to an important point that I have so far not discussed. We tend to assume that motivation is a good thing: When we talk of a worker as being "motivated" we generally believe that we are talking about a valued employee. But it is perfectly possible for a worker to be motivated to act in ways that are entirely counterproductive (McClelland & Burnham, 2008). Thus one of the aspects of researching human motivation as it applies to a productive workplace is not only how one determines and encourages what we might call pro-social motivation but also how one determines and discourages anti-social motivation.
The second need for power or N-Pow is the motivation on the part of an individual to gain not personal power but institutional power (McClelland, 1961). People who are motivated to gain this time of power are also motivated to work towards the fulfillment of the objectives of the workplace or organization as a whole. At first, this form of power or motivation might seem to be a universally good one. After all, who doesn't want a worker who is in tune with the goals of the organization? However, in reality, the issue is a rather more complicated one given that there is rarely a single goal for an organization. Thus an individual who focuses with a high degree of intensity on one of the organization's goals to the exclusion of others may in fact be a disruptive force in a workplace (McClelland & Burnham, 2008).
McClelland's third form of motivation is what he calls the need for affiliation, or N-Affil. People who are high in this form of motivation are focused most highly on their relationships with others. I believe that many people who go into the teaching field are highly motivated by their desire to have strong and supportive relationships with others. McClelland believed that people high in N-Affil are good team players and will have an easier time subsuming their own personal desires to what they perceive to be the good of the organization (McClelland, 1961).
Again, the individual who is motivated along these lines might seem to be an ideal worker. However, McClelland makes it clear that the overall picture is more complicated than this. For while it is important for workers (and especially workers in an environment such as a school) to come together in a team, it is equally important that individuals stand up for what they believe. Those high in N-Affil are good team players, but they are also highly inclined to be conformists (McClelland, 1961). They are also inclined to make decisions and act in ways that will make them popular with their fellow workers. Such decisions may or may not be in the best long-term interests of the organization (McClelland, 1961).
A final word about McClelland's work in terms of explaining human motivation was his use of the Thematic Aperception Test, or the TAT (McClelland, 1988). McClelland, to a much greater degree than either Maslow or Aldefer, was concerned with psychological nuances in terms of human motivation and so was concerned with tests or instruments that could determine how people assess both their internal states as well as their assessments of how other people think and that motivates them (McClelland, 1988). The TAT consists of a number of different types of assessments. A number of these tests include showing a test subject an ambiguous picture and asking the subject to interpret what it means. The following is a typical example of a TAT image:
(http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/morris3/chapter10/medialib/lgimages/MO469FD.GIF)
Some people see this image as a threatening one, with the older woman a menace to the younger one. (One might extrapolate from this that a person who sees this interpretation would be one who was interested in having power over others.) Other people tend to see this image as one in which the older women is comforting the younger one. (One might then speculate that people who pursue this interpretation are those with a high motivation towards affiliation.)
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