Relationship between Specialization of Teaching Subject and Teaching Experiences with Teacher’s Motivational Strategies

Abstract

Motivational strategies refer to the approaches taken by teachers in determining and maintaining students’ motivation in the teaching process. Teachers play a key role in determining the direction of students’ motivation in their classrooms. This quantitative pilot study employed survey research design to provide preliminary evidence on the types of motivational strategies used in teaching the English Language. The study also aimed to identify whether there is a relationship between teacher’s specialization and length of teaching experience with teacher’s use of motivational strategies. A total of 33 Primary School English Committee Leaders were selected through simple random sampling. The study instrument was adopted from the Motivational Strategies Questionnaires. Data analysed using SPSS version 26, showed that “appropriate teacher behavior” was the most frequent used strategy, while “encouraging students’ autonomy” was the least used motivational strategy. Meanwhile, correlation analysis showed that there was no significant relationship between teachers’ specialization and length of teaching experience with teachers’ motivational strategies. The implications of this study are important for the teacher training department where consideration on the motivational strategy approach used by teachers need to be incorporated in the training they organise.