Teachers in Urban Settings - Essay Example

?This study was initiated as a result of the concern about the bases on which science teachers in urban settings tend to stay and teach. Much of the research was conducted to investigate the rate of turnover among teachers in urban setting, but few researchers studied about teachers who stayed and taught, and the motivational factors behind their stay. The pursuit of answers to the unanswered questions about teachers in urban settings led to the purpose of this study, which was aimed to find out what influences and motivates science teachers in their choice of persistence in urban settings. This objective was met through a mixed method study that involved 194 middle and high school science teachers’ responses to the survey about self- determination theory. Teachers who scored high in the survey were contacted through an individual interview, which was a blend of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. This study increased the research about motivation among teachers, and supported future studies related to motivation among teachers in urban schools and the influence of demographic characteristics upon their decision to stay. Central questions that this study sought to answer were: Are science teachers in urban setting intrinsically motivated about persisting in urban schools? Do years of experience/race affect science teachers’ motivation (autonomy, relatedness, and competence)? How the decision to stay was affected by science teachers’ practice and identity? These questions were answered based on results of the Intrinsic Motivation Study. The results of this study suggested that teachers have intrinsic motivation as well as extrinsic motivation. It was found that years of experience and ethnicity did not affect teachers’ motivation to stay and teach in urban schools. Chapter 5 provides a full account of the data and results of the study. The following paragraphs provide a summary of the findings of the study, discussion, implications, and recommendations for future research. Interpretation of Findings Survey The majority of teachers did not agree on reporting which intrinsic motivation factors were more important to them. There might be other motivational reasons (extrinsic or intrinsic) that result in their job persistence. In this study, I only investigated the autonomy, relatedness, and competence among science teachers. I recommend future researchers to do compression between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation among teachers, which will give a better vision about the motivational factors. Next, findings from the analyses revealed that none of the dependent variables were impacted by the independent variable. The results from ANOVA indicated that it could not attribute differences in intrinsic motivation and working experience to either ethnicity or teaching experience. The independent variables that were studied did not significantly affect the majority of science teachers’ intrinsic motivation. In terms of years of experience, the findings came to an understanding of Huang and Moon (2009), who found that after 21 years of teaching experience, student achievement dropped. In this study, 36.2% selected a general response, indicating more than 15 years of teaching experience. Also, The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification found that many teachers were still in the stage of gaining proficiency and improving their effectiveness after an average of 11 years of teaching. So, experience might not be a precise variable to test competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Hence, it is recommended for future researches to find the experience more valuable by conducting such a study which compares beginners with stayers. In terms of the ethnicity, the majority of teachers were white as 68.1% of them indicated having White/Caucasian ethnicity. The high percentage of Caucasian ethnicity was likely to bias the data; however, my data supported The National Education Association (2007), which reported that more than 38% of schools across America do not have teachers of color in their classrooms. I did not have an exact idea about the number of teachers and their ethnicity in each school. I could not determine the percentage of participation of non-white teachers or teachers of color. As a result, the ethnicity variable was not precise due to variations in the number of the participants’ ethnicity. From these findings, we can see how relatedness, competence and autonomy were insignificant motivational factors. Also, it was difficult to make clear conclusions about the significance of the survey with a large sample. The findings of this survey recommend future research, which should include a comparison study between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Interview The second phase of the study was vivid in terms of intrinsic motivation. The selected participants, who scored the highest in the survey, were interviewed once, in which they reported their views and shared some of their feelings about teaching science in urban schools. All of the teachers in the interview were pleased with their present levels of autonomy, and mentioned their independence of choice in terms of how to teach science to their students, design assessments, and customize instruction for their students. They reported feeling freedom in their decisions regarding how they taught science. Even though their level and form of freedom varied, they still experienced freedom over their classes and curriculum. The results of the interview portion of the current study also support the importance of autonomy to the teaching community. The findings of the interview support Brunetti’s (2001) definition of professional autonomy as an intrinsic reward providing high levels of career satisfaction. The findings are also in accordance with Bavendam’s argument (2001), which states that employees are more satisfied when they have enough freedom while they are working in a certain position. The interview section also supported the conceptual framework about self-determination theory. During the interview, teachers’ responses emphasized the following: Classroom environment variables (autonomy support, positive teacher-principal interaction, and teacher relatedness) Psychological needs of autonomy and relatedness Self-determined motivation and Academic emotions of enjoyment and hopelessness The reason interviewees had relatedness, competence, and autonomy was that they have extrinsic motivation. Interviews also indicated other factors – love of students, service, and making a contribution toward the community. Teachers experienced autonomy, supported by their principal, and a sense of community, which, in turn, predicted teachers’ motivation regulation. Intrinsic regulation was analytical of feelings of enjoyment while identified regulation negatively predicted hopelessness, and interjected regulation positively predicted hopelessness and a feeling of guilt. The nine teachers felt that they had to fix situations, help the community, and guide their students for better future. Interviewees also had interjected regulation – guilt. These findings were supported by the Self-Determination Theory, which is based on the assumption that people have innate tendencies to grow and develop psychologically, and to combine experience into self-concept (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000). SDT is a macro-theory of human motivation, personality development, and satisfaction (Ryan, 1995). The theory focuses especially on self-determined behavior and the social and cultural conditions that stimulate it (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Teachers felt related to either students or school community. Teacher felt that they wanted to stay to see students’ success. Teachers felt accepted by peers or principal. As I mentioned in the literature review, relatedness can sometimes be perceived as friendship because people want to feel accepted and supported. Brophy (2004) said that interaction with others is important, and it represents a need to belong to a group. The desire for belonging reflects a need of connection to others; thus, people feel more secure and composed when they are accepted in a group (Brophy, 2004). The need for relatedness can be satisfied in the working environment when individuals are allowed to interact freely with peers without imposed limitations on whom to interact with. Autonomy develops best in situations where individuals feel a sense of relatedness. The interviewees expressed their satisfaction and belonging through the dialog. They also felt competent because they expressed that they were able to control their classes. They managed to teach science with many barriers. Brophy (2004) explained the concept of competence as needs that can be met when individuals successfully deal with the environment to control things around them. From the analysis of the data and interviews, we can come to the following conclusion. The teachers are not inclined to leave their job in urban schools for several reasons, which include loving their students, feeling secured by the community, and being trusted by their principals. The existing set of factors, which are favorable for the teachers to proceed their teaching career, include living in the same community as their students, which implies a stronger emotional connection and a feeling of responsibility from the educator’ side; financial issues – science does not always provide stable income; and personal life, which influences female educators’ decision-making in leaving or staying in school. A long-term experience of teaching also contributes to the choice to continue teaching rather than getting involved in science. A Call for Public policy There is a big difference between preparing a teacher to survive among regulations such as NCLB, or enriching teachers with knowledge and empowering them with extrinsic motivators so that they provide the community with better education. Deci and his collaborators found out that human interaction and sharing help integrate and organize complex experiences into meaningful social relationships. At the workplace, for example, one is able to engage, interact, and organize information through constant peer interaction. Extrinsic motivation should work toward empowering teachers and enriching their abilities to teach science. In the interviews, almost all teachers had the freedom to speak and they had a voice among administration, principals, and school community. Furthermore, instead of listing reasons for teachers to leave teaching, this study comes to support Neito’s (2003) viewpoint about finding and focusing on successful teachers, and tries to make sense of the reasons behind their motivation to teach in urban schools. It is obvious that discrimination and prejudice have played a role in the failure of large urban public schools. The overemphasized stereotypic image about urban schools may play a role in lowering expectations. The stereotypes have resulted in lowering self-esteem and achievement among teachers, and have caused them to leave. Yet, there is no justification to apply such beliefs to the entire school system since there are good administrations, principals, and leaders in the education sector, who care for their teachers and students. If policy makers are not leaving children behind, they should rethink about the exhausted teacher who is left behind. Thus, policy makers should not design such regulations that punish teachers, like retention based on student scores, or less pay when they are teaching in inner cities. Implications To have more motivated science teachers in urban settings, the findings of this study could be implemented into practice in the following ways: Teacher education departments at the universities should include educational psychology classes with an emphasis on motivation. This will increase awareness among teachers on various ways regarding how to motivate themselves in the course of teaching. Teacher colleges should provide opportunities to multicultural student teachers and should offer them scholarships. This may increase teachers of different communities to go back and teach in their communities with some diverse experience about other communities. Experienced teachers should mentor new teachers, support them, and provide them with hints that they learned over the years, in order to help new teachers reduce work pressure. There should be structured meetings for teachers in which they may share their problems and discuss possible solutions. Authorities should implement extrinsic motivation in a beneficial approach to increase teachers’ persistence in urban schools. Public school administrators must develop and manage such policy that provides teachers with suitable support, rewarding them instead of punishing them. Recommendations for Future Research Further research should be conducted in multiple settings to assist active specialists in providing universities with greater insight in developing better programs. The results of this study may vary when larger samples are comprised and when teachers from different populations are included. Future research may also include a comparison study to investigate the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation among teachers, or teachers and their administrations, as measured by the IMI. I also recommend looking at quality of instruction based on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of teachers. If the future research is quantitative, additional possibilities for improving external validity of the study exist, which include extending the eligibility for participation through applying quantitative methods of causal reasoning to the collected data, and improving the methods of geographical clustering in order to generalize results to the country level. 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