Who is attending training to comply with the expectations of the school management? A study among Romanian in-service teachers

Abstract

ABSTRACT The problem of teachers’ motivations for participating in training is central in any education system because it shapes the system’s capacity to adapt to the rapidly changing reality. The aim of this paper is to estimate the prevalence of this motivation among Romanian teachers and to identify certain predictors beyond such motivations for training enrolment. Our paper contributes to the understanding of Romanian in-service teachers’ participation in training in relation to the desire to comply with the management’s expectations. The method involves an online national survey conducted in 2021 with approximately 5,000 in-service teachers. Our study’s results indicate that 38.6% assessed compliance with management expectations as a high motivation to participate in training. The profile of the Romanian ‘conformist’ teachers has several distinctive characteristics: higher interest in career advancement, higher satisfaction with the existent financial mechanisms for attending training, lower level of qualification and lower self-evaluated difficulties in blended teaching.