Connecting formal and informal workplace learning with teacher proactivity: a proactive motivation perspective

Abstract

<jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title> <jats:p>It is vital in today’s society that teachers are proactively involved in educational change. Given that proactive motivation is a critical driver of proactivity, this study aims to investigate how teachers’ formal and informal workplace-learning experiences were connected with their proactive motivations to implement educational change.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title> <jats:p>The authors used a qualitative case study approach to describe the relationships between teachers’ formal and informal learning activities and their different proactive motivations. The authors collected data from 17 teachers via individual interviews and open-ended questionnaire and performed analyses using a continuous inductive and deductive coding process.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title> <jats:p>The authors found that informal teacher learning can trigger three types of proactive motivation, whereas formal teacher learning is mainly connected with the can do and energised to motivations. The authors also found that formal and informal learning complement and compete with each other in shaping the can do motivation. Moreover, the authors found that informal learning played the dominant role in the reason to motivation, whereas informal and formal learning were separately connected to the energised to motivation.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Practical implications</jats:title> <jats:p>These findings indicate that greater attention must be paid to teachers’ informal workplace-learning experiences. Specifically, teachers’ informal learning experiences should be actively integrated into their formal workplace training to enhance their proactive motivation to educational change. Moreover, teachers’ learning preferences and teaching experience should be considered in the design of teacher-training programmes.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title> <jats:p>Based on the proactive motivation model of Parker <jats:italic>et al.</jats:italic> (2010), the authors have uncovered the mechanisms of workplace learning that drive teacher proactivity. The authors have examined the relationship between teachers’ formal and informal workplace-learning and proactive teaching. The findings will assist policymakers and administrators to identify effective means of motivating teachers to engage in workplace learning.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

Striving for personal growth matters: The relationship between personal growth initiative, teacher engagement and instructional quality

“…According to the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005), when teachers can arouse positive emotions in teaching, they may be inclined to formulate more effective strategies for their instruction and management of the classroom. Moreover, social engagement with colleagues is closely related to teacher communication, through which teachers can access effective classroom management strategies (Huang & Lai, 2020) and improve their classroom management. Finally, only social engagement with students was positively associated with the teachers' self-reported supportive climate behaviour.…”

Workplace learning for pre – service teachers’ practice and quality teaching and learning in technical vocational education and training: key to professional development

“…Previous researches studied different ways by which teachers perceive and how workplace conditions influence teachers learning activities and learning outcomes. This resulted from the qualitative analysis of the responses of 32 experienced teachers’ informal workplace learning in the context of education reform with an highlight on the relationship between teacher informal workplace learning and their perception of the conditions for learning (Hoekstra et al , 2009; Huang and Lai, 2020). This outcome is an indication that teachers’ perceived workplace conditions influence their learning activities and outcome (Hoekstra et al , 2009; Meirink et al , 2009).…”

“…Technical vocational education and training are carried out formally and learners can be engaged through informal training. Formal training mostly comprises institutionally endorsed programmes that are designed to improve people’s knowledge, awareness and skills (Clarke, 2005; Huang and Lai, 2020), while informal workplace learning is usually facilitated by personal interest and/or working problems that prompts and largely depends on individual initiation (Eraut, 2004; Lohman, 2006).…”