Date of Award

2007

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Gail D. Hughes, Ph.D

Abstract

This study compared perceptions of teacher intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, dependent variables, among the independent variables of job type (teachers and administrators), years of experience (novice, experienced, and veteran), and gender. Teachers, N = 793, indicated their level of agreement with the motivation statements and 90 administrators indicated what they believe motivates teachers. Due to a low correlation between the dependent variables and small cell sizes for the novice administrators; researcher conducted univariate, rather than multivariate analyses, using a Bonferroni adjusted alpha of .017. Two independent t -tests compared teacher and administrator responses to the scales. Results indicated that teacher ratings of intrinsic motivation items ( M = 4.350, SD = 0.411) were statistically significantly more than ( t (803) = 2.620, p = .009) administrators' perceptions of teachers' intrinsic motivation ( M = 4.224, SD = 0.491). Extrinsic results indicated that teacher ratings ( M = 3.460, SD = 0.612) were statistically significantly less than ( t (112.508) = 5.311, p < .001) administrators' perceptions of teachers' extrinsic motivation ( M = 3.757, SD = 0.449). Estimates of effect size, Cohen's d, were small at 0.300 and 0.357 standard deviations respectively. Teacher responses were further analyzed with 2 x 3 ANOVAs for gender and experience on both the intrinsic and extrinsic scales. Interaction terms were nonsignificant for both analyses. The main effect for gender on the intrinsic scale was significant, F (1, 645) = 5.482, p = .020; with a very small effect size of η 2 = .008. Females indicated stronger agreement with intrinsic items ( M = 4.371, SD = 0.397) than males ( M = 4.249, SD = 0.410). Findings indicated a discrepancy between teachers' indication of intrinsic motivation and administrators' indication of extrinsic motivation for teachers. Furthermore, female teachers indicated slightly higher intrinsic motivation scores than males. Findings and implications for teachers and administrators are discussed.

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