Paper presented at the AECS Conference, Glasgow, 1990.
Published in Epistolodidaktika 1990/1.
When I first was asked to give a presentation on the subject "motivatingtutors" I felt that would be an interesting and motivatingtask. When I then sat down to produce the presentation I experienced that process as considerably more difficult. At first I had to face a lot of difficult questions: What does it really mean to motivate tutors? - and all of them! Why is it important to motivate tutors? And - the last and perhaps the most intriguing one to me; How do I motivate the tutors on our staff? How do you motivate tutors on your staff? In trying to answer these questions, I first turned to the University Library. I knew scholars had taken an interest in the subject of motivation, and that many scientific investigations had been set up to produce new knowledge, right from the late 1920ies, with the famous Hawthorne investigations, up till today.
In the Hawthorne investigations the unexpected findings were that interpersonal relationships were more important for the individual's work performance than e.g. electric lighting, working hours, breaks etc.
The employees' experience that someone really did care about them, and how they experienced their work situation, was the most important influence on their work performance. But are these findings relevant to my subject "motivationtutors?" Before entering further into the subject, I will try to define the elusive consept of motivation.
The term motivation is derived from the Latin word "movere"and the English "move". According to present thinking this is a rather insufficient definition of the word motivation, and "motivation" is used as an "umbrella" for many different definitions. (Day 1985).
What ties them all together is their common interest in the basic question "Why do individuals think and act the way they do?"(Nyberg 1988).
One main reason why motivation is so difficult to define in a simple way is that it is a sort of hypothetical construction. It is impossible to observe an individual's motivation directly. What we observe is a person's behaviour and the surroundings in which the person is active. We then draw conclusions about the motivation. We assume there is "something" within theindividual that arises, directs and maintains the behaviour. This "something" is not possible to measure directly, as far as we know so far. (Ball 1982).
A generally accepted definition of motivation I found in Nyberg1988: "A system of psychological factors that arises, maintains and directs behaviour." The concept of motivation is then linked to goal directed conscious or unconscious behaviour. Motivated persons choose and direct action to achieve their ends. This definition is a very wide one, so in order to narrow the concept a bit more, it is necessary to introduce the concept "Workmotivation". Generally, this term is used to describe the employees' motivationto perform their tasks and to maintain and develop their professional skills. The emphasis is especially put on the employees' will and wish to work for the goals they have set, in our connection their tuition. The result, however, is a function of both ability and motivation.(Vroon 1964).
In order to develop the concept "motivating tutors" even further, I will have to introduce briefly a few central conceptsand theories in motivation generally, - and finally point at factors specific for tutors in distance education. The theory - building and research in the field are very extensive. For this presentation I have picked and chosen just a few, and will give a brief introductionto what, in my opinion, is central and relevant theory.
Work satisfaction is an important factor in this context. This phenomenon is linked to the person's expectations. A person can be motivated for a task because of positive expectations,- both with regard to his ability and the result of the activity.
Work satisfaction or dissatisfaction is a function of the person's expectations and wishes and the real experience and possibility the tasks de facto give the person. The more the real conditions are separated from the positive expectations, the less work satisfaction.
According to Nyberg -88, there have been a lot of terms in use to describe these phenomena, and he introduces the terms internal and external motivation. The core of the question is whether the task is experienced to be rewarding in itself or if it is the result/consequences of the task that is experienced as rewarding.
The external motivation is dependent on the environment and working conditions. Satisfaction and motivation are created by rewards from the environment of wished-for behaviour. These rewards could be money, praise, recognition, acceptance or even punishment and rejection, if the behaviour was unwanted.
Internal motivation is when the task in itself is experienced as rewarding and functions without control from the environment. According to Deci & Ryan 1985, this inner motivation is based on a need for competence and self-determination.
At the moment the scholars are debating the relationship between internal and external motivation. I will leave that alone, and just mention that the theories of expectation take for granted that there is an additive relationship between internal and external motivation. (Mowday 1982). According to recent research it also seems reasonable to conclude that the internal motivation is more essential to lengthy and demanding tasks.
As for the tutors, their tasks are both demanding and complexand there is reason to believe that their internal motivation is more essential than the external.
One aspect is to say that the determinants are 1) need, 2) incentive and 3) cognitive processes. This aspect is presented by Nyberg, - 88, and is described by the following figure):
In this way of thinking, we have to take into account:
Imaginations, expectations and values have a decided effect upon how individuals experience the environment and different incentives. Two different individuals can experience and react upon the same specific situation in a very different way.
At the moment there is no theory of motivation that contains all essential factors and takes into account the interactive effects (Seers & Porter, 1987). The many theories are rather to beseen to supplement one another.
A way of integrating the determinants in theory-building is to say that the need theories describe the internal determinants of behaviour, while the incentive theories describe the external determinants and the cognitive theories describe the individual differences.
Maslow's theory is one of the most popular in the research of work motivation. Though later empirical findings have opposed rather than confirmed this theory, it has been an important source of inspiration to the researchers in the field.
His hierarchy of needs has not been confirmed by empirical findings. A common sense observation is that safety in the work situation, the need for affection and recognition is in a high degree part of the need structure of most people, not only at a specific developmental stage. Statements opposed to this common sense observation, therefore need substantial support in findings.
Hertzberg's two - factor - theory is another much applied theory in the field. This theory takes for granted that work satisfaction and dissatisfaction are divided concepts, and are created by different factors. Factors increasing work satisfaction are called motivators(achievement, advancement, recognition and the work itself). Those that increase dissatisfaction are called hygiene factors(pay, company policies, co-workers and supervisory style.)
They affect motivation when they are absent in a work situation, but Hertzberg argued that eliminating the causes of dissatisfaction- the hygiene factors - would not result in a state of satisfaction. Instead, it would result in a neutral state. Satisfaction - and motivation - would occur only as a result of the use of motivators. His theory has been a very fruitful one, though it has been subject to several important criticisms.
So far a brief survey of two of the popular theories in the field of motivation. Let us go back to our fist definition of motivation: "It is a system of psychological factors that arises, maintains and directs behaviour."
What is then needed to say something relevant about tutor motivation in distance education? First of all I think we will have to point at determinants or factors that separate or distinguish tutors in distance education from other employees.
And even in distance education the tutors' working conditions would be very different. At NKI, for instance, nearly all tutors are part-time tutors in distance education. Their main employers could be other schools and universities, private companies or public administration offices. Other institutions offering education at a distance, employ full-time tutors.
Apart from these differences, tutors in distance education have one main aspect in common: They teach at distance. They communicate at a distance, first of all with their student but also with one another as colleagues and with their school authorities. This affects central elements or determinants in the theories we have just looked at.
According to i.e. Hertzberg's theory and his factors for increasing motivation and work satisfaction, the work itself, the experience of achievement, advancement and recognition are crucial. Do our tutors experience this in their interaction with their students? With their colleagues? Their school authorities?
How are the conditions for our tutors with regard to what Hertzberg calls hygiene factors, - those that increase dissatisfaction,and affect motivation if they are absent to a certain minimum degree in the work situation? Such as pay, supervisory style, company policies, positive interaction with co-workers etc. According to his views, these factors will not create satisfaction, but take away dissatisfaction.
At the end of my review of "motivating tutors", I have even more questions than in the beginning; but at this stage I do not accept it as my task to answer them. That will be a task for all of us.
Ball, S. 1982
Motivation. In H. E. Mitzel (Ed.) Encyclopedia of educationalresearch (Vol 3. pp. 1256- 1263) New York: Macmillan
Day, H. I. 1985
Motivation. In T. Husen & N. T. Postlethwaite (Eds.) InternationalEncyclopedia of education pp. 3425 - 3430). Oxford: Pergamon.
Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. 1985
Intrinsic motivation and selfdetermination in human behavior.New York: Plenum.
Herzberg, F. 1975
One more time: How to you motivate employees? In R. M. Steers& L. W. Porter (Eds), Motivation and work behaviour. (pp.91 - 194) New York: McGraw-Hill.
Mowday, R. T. 1982
Expectancy theory approaches to faculty motivation. In J. Bess(Ed.) New directions for teaching and learning (Motivating professorsto teach effectively, No. 10.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Nyberg, R. 1988
Yrkeslärares arbetsmotivasjon, Åbo Academy Press.
Steers, R. M. and Porter, L. W. 1987
Motivation and work behavior. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Vroom, V. H. 1964
Work and Motivation. New York: Wiley.