What are University Professors’ Motivations? A Realistic Approach to Self-perception of Spanish University Professors’ Professional Development

Abstract

Background: The university must take on the challenges that arise at all levels. Within this mechanism, university professors play an important role as facilitators of knowledge. Aim: To analyse the motivations that influence the professional performance of Spanish university professors. Methods: 102 university professors from 9 Spanish public universities participated in the study. [Male: 54 (52.9%); Female: 48 (47.1%)]. A questionnaire of 22 closed-ended Likert-type questions was designed, scoring from 0-10 (do not agree at all, strongly agree). Results: The questionnaire, finally composed of 17 items, showed good internal consistency. (Cronbach's alpha=0.858). The validity analysis showed a value of 0.822 (>0.5) ) in the sample adequacy measure KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) and Bartlett's sphericity test (p<0.0001). The exploratory factor analysis showed a clustering in 4 factors (2 for internal goods and 2 for external goods), explaining 64.33% of the total variance. Comparisons between each factor scores by gender (male and female) showed differences statistically significant by gender for factor F1 (higher for females) and F2 (higher for males). Finally, Q1 and Q13 showed a statistically significant correlation (p≤0.05) with years of teaching experience. Conclusions: The motivations of Spanish university professors seem to be associated with the age and gender of the teacher.

TIC en educación en la era digital: propuestas de investigación e intervención

“…Si se analiza la visión que el alumnado tiene de las materias del área de ciencias sociales, predomina la visión de estas materias como excesivamente teóricas y con pocas posibilidades de aplicación práctica de sus competencias (Miguel-Revilla y Sánchez Agustí, 2018; Ortega Chavez y Cabello Flores, 2020). Este factor tiene una incidencia negativa en la motivación del alumnado, ya que, a medida que se percibe un saber como distante de la vida real y con poca aplicación de tipo práctico, disminuye el interés por su aprendizaje (Espejo-Antúnez et al, 2021;García-Poyato Falcón et al, 2018).…”