Analysing the Role of External Policy Interventions in Explaining the Trend of School Educators’ Intrinsic Motivation

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dabgoudw

This study investigates how external policy interventions help explain changes in school educators’ professional intrinsic motivation over time. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, the research describes trends across 1,470 educators in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 through four cross-sectional sub-studies, then interprets them with retrospective narrative data. Analyses combine descriptive statistics, F and η² tests, and content analysis. Results show a significant negative trend as years progress and indicate that educators’ prior experiences attribute meaningful influence to external policy interventions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages22

Reading Time55 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Intrinsic Motivation of Educators

Theoretical bases of intrinsic motivation

Implications for educational administration

Analysing the Role of External Policy Interventions in Explaining the Trend of School Educators’ Intrinsic Motivation Kamil YILDIRIM1 Aksaray University Abstract This study investigated the role of external policy interventions in explaining the trend of school educators’ professional intrinsic motivation. Through the explanatory sequential design of the mixed study, we first described the trend in the intrinsic motivation of a total of 1 470 school educators between 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 by four-legged cross-sectional sub-studies. Then, we collected retrospective narrative data to give meaning the trend. We analyzed the data by descriptive statistics (F and Ƞ² tests) and content analysis. At the end of the study, we found out a negative significant trend in educators’ intrinsic motivation as the years progressed. Past experiences of educators indicated the meaningful role of external policy interventions in generating this trend. Keywords: Policy Interventions, School, Trend, Intrinsic Motivation, Mixed Study DOI: 10.29329/epasr.2020.334.17 1 Assoc. Prof. Faculty of Education, Aksaray University, Aksaray, Turkey, ORCID: 0000-0002-5212-3905 [Correspondence](Correspondence: kamilyildirim@aksaray.edu.tr)[: kamilyildirim@aksaray.edu.tr](Correspondence: kamilyildirim@aksaray.edu.tr) Introduction An intrinsically motivated employee is a very important feature of organizational development. Creative, sensitive, flexible, and deeply knowledgeable people can make invaluable contributions to the work life. In the educational area, intrinsically motivated teachers can lead to a significant improvement in students’ learning in very diverse settings (Viennet and Pont, 2017) . Professional intrinsic motivation of educators in school (PIMES) is a significant contributor for innovative practices at school level. Therefore, the educational administration tries to improve PIMES. However, external interventions may have reverse effect on it. Although intrinsic motivation (IM) is an internal process, it is also susceptible to external interventions. The Motivation Crowding Theory argues the influence of external interventions on employees’ intrinsic motivation (Frey and Jegen, 2001) . In line with this theory, studies, involving participants from different industries, pointed out the effect of the external intervention on the IM (e.g., Deci, Koestner, and Ryan, 1999; Jacobsen, Hvitved, and Andersen 2014; Pedersen, Andersen, Jensen, Waldorff and Jacobsen, 2018) . Schools are mainly professional organizations, and educators in school tend to act autonomously in teachinglearning process. Any external intervention to this process can be perceived as a threat by educators. This assertion has a significant meaning for developing and implementing the educational policies. Literature review displays the research gap in addressing the role of policy interventions in forming the PIMES. This study aims at investigating the role of educational policy interventions (EPI) informing the PIMES. Intrinsic Motivation of Educators Intrinsically motivated people in a particular profession has the potential to commit original and valuable works in an organization. Intrinsic motivation (IM) has a more powerful effect on effort and outcomes than the extrinsic one has (Cerasoli, Nicklin and Ford, 2014) . Controlling an individual’s behavior by outer sources refers to external motivation; on the other side, the IM describes personal control over his/her behavior. In addition, extrinsic motivation is influential for the routines but it is not for tasks requiring creativity (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2017; Demir, 2019; Dönmez, 2013; Lunenburg and Ornstein, 2012; Robbins and Judge, 2015; Ryan and Deci, 2000; Ryan and Deci, 2017; Schermerhorn, 2012) . According to Ryan and Deci (2017), IM works based on enjoying the activity itself and employee has enthusiasm and attention. It refers to paying attention, goal setting, autonomy, competence, and mast

FAQs

What is the main purpose of this study?

To investigate how educational policy interventions explain the trend of professional intrinsic motivation of educators in schools (PIMES).

How was the research designed and what data were used?

The study used an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design: four cross-sectional sub-studies measured the trend among 1,470 educators across 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018, followed by retrospective narrative data to provide meaning to the trend.

What did the study find about educators’ intrinsic motivation over time?

It found a significant negative trend in educators’ intrinsic motivation as the years progressed, with educators’ past experiences indicating the meaningful role of external policy interventions in generating this trend.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dabgoudw