Role of psychology in education: enhancing motivation among educators

Abstract

In the arena of education, a good and sound knowledge of psychology is pertinent not only for understanding students but also for understanding educators. Such an understanding and knowledge would assist professionals who are interested in helping overcome problems encountered by either students or educators. Topics in educational psychology include readiness, learning theories, human growth and development, attitude theories and change, attribution, · personality, thinking, and motivation. The understanding of these topics would enable us to understand human behaviour, to predict behaviour based on past and current information, and also how to change behaviour in the desired direction. In the educational setting such as schools, the role of psychology may be enumerated in three ways. Firstly, knowledge of psychology widens teachers' frame of reference in their working environment. For example, teachers would then be able to understand problems faced by their students from several Psychological would enable us to understand the different motives for choosing teaching as a career. ,: Secondly, it acquaints teachers with broad areas of applications and offer altematives for considerations. ' In a similar light, problems faced by teachers may be overcome through some psychological approaches and methods. The various altematives to solve problems suggest that different individuals require different methods to overcome their problems. Finally, a sound knowledge of psychology would affect teachers' classroom behaviors in positive ways. Teachers would then be able to see their students and their working environment from different angles. Similarly, principals, being in the super-ordinate position in school, would also be able to emphatize with both their teachers and students. The purpose of this paper is to address the following questions: 1. What are the motivational factors for teaching among teachers? 2. To what extent do these motivations still persist and prevail after being in the profession? 3. What psychological methods can be used to enhance motivation among teachers? Motivations for Teaching

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One area of interest in education is motivations for teaching. This is evidenced by the amount of research that had been carried in this area. The need to know as to what factors attract people to join the teaching profession had been voiced out as early as the first quarter of this century. It is universally agreed that teaching is an important and noble profession . Society in general is concerned about the quality and type of individuals being selected into the teaching profession . This is attributed to the fact that teachers play an important role in shaping attitudes and behaviour of young children and adolescents under their charge. Studies on the different motivations for teaching could be traced to the early part of the twentieth century, mainly outside of Malaysia. These studies were carried out either on education students (Valentine, 1934; Tudhope, 1944; Richards, 1960; Fox, 1961; Saxe, 1969; Ee, 1969; Anucia, 1974;