Reframing motivation as ‘investment’ in teacher continuing professional development
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Date
2023
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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
Abstract
This study is framed within Norton’s notion of ‘investment’ to
explore the factors influencing teachers’ reasons and decisions to
participate in continuing professional development (CPD) activities.
Data were collected from 522 junior high school teachers in the
Central region of Ghana using a survey and in-depth interviews. The
findings reveal that teachers more frequently participated in informal CPD activities than in organized ones. Also, motivation to
participate in CPD activities extended beyond intrinsic and extrinsic
motivators to include sociocultural factors such as the nature of
teachers’ identity and agency, which were shaped by existing contextual conditions in teachers’ professional practice. Such social
conditions increased teachers’ expectations of resources from CPD
participation. Therefore, teachers invested in CPD activities where
their expectations of resources from participation outweighed the
cost to be expended on such involvement. The study opens up
a debate for rethinking teacher motivation to include the notion of
‘investment’ to provide a much deeper understanding of the complexities involved in teachers’ reasons for participating in CPD
activities.
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Research Article
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Citation
To cite this article: Ellen Abakah (2023): Reframing motivation as ‘investment’ in teacher continuing professional development, Teacher Development, DOI: 10.1080/13664530.2023.2167858