Enhancement of Motivation for Teachers in Small Schools, Muang District, Samut Songkhram Province

Abstract

The research has three main objectives: to develop teacher motivation enhancement activities; to compare teachers’ motivation during pre- and post-implementation of teacher motivation enhancement activities; and to produce recommendations for teacher motivation enhancement activities that can be used for enhancing small school teachers’ motivation. To achieve the objectives of the research, the author utilized a participatory action research approach. The target population included 20 voluntary teachers and 3 executives from schools and the Office of Basic Education Commission. This research discovered three exciting findings. First, the six-stages of teacher motivation are: self-evaluation, planning for activities, implementation of planned activities, reflection on taking part in activities, extending knowledge, and formulating lessons learned from activities. Second, the comparison study of teachers’ motivation during pre- and post-implementation of the teacher motivation is significantly higher at 37.93 per cent. The result shows that the average score of teachers’ motivation prior to the research study is 3.84 and after participating in this research, the average score of teachers’ motivation is 4.28. Third, this research has produced recommendations for implementing teacher motivation enhancement activities for small schools. The research highlights that teachers’ motivation to work and teach can be built through five aspects which are success in work, teaching performance, own responsibility, career progress, and self-esteem. It is suggested that work allocation should be based on teachers’ passion and interests a key for successful implementation of teacher motivation enhancement activities is the establishment a good relationship between teachers, school executives, administrative staff, pupils, parents and external organizations. The researcher has also experimented the teacher motivation enhancement activities in the target schools’ networked schools. The teacher motivation enhancement activities would be useful for teachers’ self-development.