Teacher motivation in Chile: Motivational profiles and teaching quality in an incentive-based education system

This study drew on Chilean teacher survey responses from TALIS 2018 data on teacher motivation in order to examine the extent to which these data reveal different motivational profiles among Chilean teachers. Also, it explores the influence of those profiles on quality teachers’ instruction. As a conceptual scaffold, this article uses Agency Theory and Public Service Motivation theory to conceptualize and explore the data. Using latent classes analysis, multivariate regressions with survey methods, results showed three different motivational profiles: utility-laden, modal, and socially-laden. From these profiles, modal teachers seem to produce better teaching quality compared with the others profiles. These results suggest that the teachers’ profiles are more diverse when it comes to work motivation and teaching quality than what it is described in the literature. These findings give interesting insights for policymakers and school leaders to better understand the teaching workforce and think in diverse governance and teacher management tools. It also opens a set of interesting questions about how to motivate the teacher workforce in Chile.