1.3 Objectives
1.3.1 There are two major objectives for this research. The first is to compare the level of motivation among secondary school teachers under the Vancouver British Columbia School District in Canada by their socio-demographic and organizational factors. My hypothesis in advance of investigating this is that there are indeed demographic factors that will have a significant effect on overall levels of motivation, although I do not yet know what these may be and I am prepared (as any good researcher must be) to find that my initial ideas are wrong. For example, I believe that I will find that female teachers are, on the whole, more motivated than male teachers because it is still the case that women have fewer career paths open to them than men do and so they will be more willing to accept the problems within the teaching profession. (I am not arguing that they should accept such problems more willingly than do men, just that I believe that they will.) But I do understand that I may be entirely wrong in this initial assumption.
1.3.2 My second objective in carrying out this research, after having determined the levels of motivation among secondary teachers working under the Vancouver British Columbia School District, is to recommend the areas for improvement. If the level of teacher motivation can be improved (as noted above) then not only will the teachers find their jobs to be more rewarding, but students (and their families) and school districts will benefit as well. Indeed, such is the importance and power of public education that it is not an exaggeration to say that improving the motivation of teachers has beneficial effects on the whole of society.
1.4 Research Contributions
1.4.1 The primary contribution of this research is to provide a high level of detail about teacher motivation levels. One way to assess teacher motivation is to examine tracher attrition rates. While the phenomenon of high rates of teacher attrition is well-known, the specific mechanisms involved are not necessarily well understood. Or rather, the mechanics of how to address lack of teacher motivation are not sufficiently well understood to remedy the problems. Teaching can be a very isolating profession given that teachers spend the majority of their time with their students and not with other teachers, which means that often each teacher has to try to motivate himself or herself alone. By aggregating data on a number of different teachers, I hope to be able to demonstrate broad trends in teacher motivation that will allow each individual teacher to learn from collective wisdom.
1.4.2 The second research contribution that I wish to make is to help tease out the connections between teacher motivation and larger social forces. As noted above, teacher motivation tends to be framed as a problem of the individual. But while it is individual teachers who may face daily struggles with motivation, I believe that it is important to remember that no teacher is an island. Institutional levels of support from provincial and federal governments affect levels of teacher motivation, I believe, because the degree of resources that are available to teachers (including everything from funding for mentoring programs, to the provision of mental health services to teachers, to class size, etc.) affect their levels of motivation. This is an aspect of teacher motivation that is generally overlooked and so I propose to examine the important connections between teacher motivation and larger political and social trends.
1.5
(For you to do)
1.6 Operational Definitions of the Terms
Most of the terms that I am using in this research I apply in their commonsensical definitions. For example, when I refer to "schools," or "school districts" or "provincial" or "federal" government I am using these words in their everyday meaning. Other words I am using in nearly their most standard sense. For example, when I refer to "teachers" I mean not only classroom teachers but also other professional individuals who provide instruction in the classroom such as teacher aides. I exclude from the category of teaching those offering incidental instructional services (such as a parent who comes in to provide an hour's lecture on a career path, for example).
I have included substitute teachers in my definition of "teacher" although my focus is on those who are full-time staff teachers. This is not because I do not recognize the value of substitute teachers, who work under truly adverse conditions a lot of the time. However, I do believe that there are distinct differences between the motivations of substitute teachers and full-time teachers. I believe that it would provide very interesting results to compare and contrast the motivations of substitute and full-time teachers. However, for the purposes of this research I am emphasizing...
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