A Holistic Examination of Administrative, Occupational, and Dispositional Antecedents of Teacher Motivation

Abstract

This study seeks to contribute to the discussions on teacher motivation by holistically evaluating non-manipulative variables, such as personality traits, and manipulative variables, such as administrative (democratic and transformational leadership) and occupational antecedents (work engagement, burnout, participation in professional learning activities), that have leading effects on teacher motivation. Therefore, we empirically tested this holistic model, which evaluated the direct and indirect effects of administrative, occupational, and dispositional antecedents on teacher motivation. A total of 588 teachers were randomly selected as the sample for the study and willingly participated. A total of six standardized assessment instruments were used to collect the data: The Teacher Motivation Scale, The Leadership Style Behavior Scale, The Participation in Professional Learning Activities Inventory, The Maslach Burnout Inventory, The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, and the Personality Inventory. Correlation coefficients, linear regression, and path analysis were used to investigate relationships between variables and the direct effects of independent variables on teacher motivation. In addition, a structural model was specified, estimated, and evaluated. According to the results, teacher burnout levels have negative relationships with administrative (democratic and transformational leadership) and other occupational antecedents (work engagement and participating learning activities), as well as with teacher motivation. However, we did not find any relationships between dispositional factors (personality traits) and administrative or occupational antecedents, with the exception of burnout. Finally, whereas administrative and occupational antecedents are significantly related to teacher motivation, many dispositional factors, except openness to experience, are not.