Publication: Factors influencing motivation of secondary school teachers in Nyandarua North sub county Nyandarua county.
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2015-04
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Mount Kenya University
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Abstract
Teacher motivation plays an important role in the promotion of teaching and learning
excellence. Generally, motivated teachers are more likely to motivate students to learn in the
classroom, to ensure the implementation of educational reforms and feelings of satisfaction and
fulfillment. While teacher motivation is fundamental to the teaching and learning process,
several teachers are not highly motivated. This study aimed at finding out which factors affect
teachers’ motivation in public secondary schools in Nyandarua North Sub County. Specifically,
the study sought to find out the influence of job satisfaction on teacher motivation in public
secondary schools, to determine the effect of reward system on teacher motivation in public
secondary schools and to find the effect of professional training and development on teacher
motivation in public secondary schools. The study adopted descriptive survey design and
targeted 30 principals and 680 teachers from all the 30 schools in the Sub County. Purposive
sampling technique was used to sample principals while simple random sampling technique
was used to sample teachers. A total of 8 teachers were randomly sampled from each of the 14
schools used in the actual study. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used as
instruments for data collection. Quantitative data was coded tallied and analyzed using
descriptive statistic such as frequencies and percentages. The result of data analysis was
reported in summary form using frequency tables, bar graphs and pie charts. Qualitative data
analysis for the open ended questions was done using content analysis where ideas were
grouped into themes. The study found that, the nature of motivation policies at the school level
was found to be a major factor whereby majority of teachers described them as weak,
insufficient and lacking in adequate incentives to ensure motivation among the teachers. Job
satisfaction was identified as the second factor affecting motivation of the teachers. The study
found that teacher’s level of job satisfaction is low and the situation is attributed to poor
remuneration, unfair promotion policies, lack of fringe benefits, poor working environment,
poor interpersonal relationships with their supervisors and poor working conditions. Thirdly,
reward system for teachers was found to affect the teacher’s level of motivation. Majority of
the teachers perceive their job as lacking opportunities for personal and career development
implying that to a large extent, the professional does not offer opportunities for career and
personal development. Also, majority of the teachers perceive the teaching profession as to be
enjoying status and prestige due to it to a low extent indicating therefore that majority of the
teachers do not find their job rewarding enough. Finally, the study identified school based
challenges affecting teacher motivation as lack of autonomy to develop motivational policies,
budgetary limitations, poor perception of the teachers that motivation can only be monetary,
poor attitude of the other stakeholders towards motivation of teachers and poor human resource
management skills among the school management that does not value the human capital.
Government policy based challenges mentioned include absence of a vote head to cater for
staff motivation, limitations imposed by public officer’s ethics bill, budgetary constraints and
lack of training in human resource management.
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Education