Why do we teach? A person-centered examination of faculty teaching needs and motivation

Abstract

It is important to understand faculty motivations for teaching because we know from variable- centered studies that faculty who are intrinsically motivated to teach are more likely to use effective teaching practices in their courses. Using self-determination theory as a framework and a person-centered approach to analyses, this study uses a large-scale, multi-institution quantitative data set of faculty responses about their motivations and motivational needs for teaching. Findings show strong, positive relationships between motivational needs and teaching motivation and imply that faculty demographics and employment characteristics (e.g., racial/ethnic, disciplinary) relate to faculty perceptions of motivational needs for teaching. For practitioners, identifying faculty who have unfulfilled basic needs could be a means to hold targeted interventions to improve faculty motivation for teaching.