Factors that Influence the Motivation of Filipino Teachers in Taiwan

Abstract

Taiwan has recently opened up to foreign English teachers in order to achieve its goal of having English as a second language by 2030. Many Filipino teachers are now considering working in Taiwan and at present, there are officially 193 of them working there. This study aimed to identify the factors that motivate the Filipino teachers in Taiwan. The Employee Motivational Factor Importance Questionnaire (EMFI), a researcher-made instrument with 8 items and using a 7- point Likert scale was crafted to measure the importance of 8 employee motivation factors. An adaptation of the Situational Motivation Scale (SIMS) questionnaire was made to measure the levels of the teachers’ motivation in four domains, namely Intrinsic motivation, Identified regulation, External regulation and Amotivation. 25 Filipino teachers in Taiwan were identified using snowball sampling and invited to participate in this study. Opportunities for professional growth and development was found to be the most important motivation factor according to the results of the EMFI. However, using Pearson r computations between the 8 EMFI motivation factors and the 4 SIMS domains, it was found that their level of motivation is mostly positively affected by leadership and relationship with the leader, the job’s social environment and financial benefits of the job.