Developing young teachers’ motivation for success through a professional skills competition

Abstract

Developing young teachers’ motivation for success through their participation in professional competitions is a relevant issue. Its relevance is determined by the necessity to reveal the potential of a young teacher’s personality. Moreover, the impact that participation in contests may have on a teacher’s motivation has not yet been completely investigated. The article, thus, focuses on the problem of involving young teachers in competitions held by universities. The purpose of the research is to fi nd out what teacher training universities can do in the area of developing young teachers’ motivation for success through a professional skills competition. The authors hypothesize that participation of young teachers in competitions contributes to the development of their motivation for success in teaching. The research was carried out (2017-2021) on a sample of young teachers (N=198, teaching experience was no more than 5 years, men – 3, women – 195) of the educational institutions of the Ulyanovsk region. The researchers then diff erentiated between the experimental (n = 97, man – 1, women – 96) and control (n = 101, men – 2, women – 99) groups. To diff erentiate the groups, the researchers used the criterion of the teachers’ participation/non-participation in the competition “Personal Success”. The authors used the questionnaire “Motivation for Success and Fear of Failure” (by A. A. Rean) to record the parameters of motivation for success and avoiding failure. The research shows that the number of young teachers with a high level of motivation for success has increased by 16.2 % among those who participated in the competition. On the contrary, the index of the control group has decreased by 4.1 %. It is revealed that the number of teachers from the experimental group with a medium high level of motivation for success has risen by 27.2 %, whereas the same index in the control group has fallen down by 5.2 %. Evidently, the number of the respondents with a medium level of motivation in the experimental group has decreased by 43.4 %; the fi gure of the control group has fallen by 10.4 %. The article concludes that participation of young teachers in competitions has a positive impact on their motivation for success in teaching. The experience of Ulyanovsk Sate Pedagogical University named by I. N. Ulyanov in developing young teachers’ motivation for success by holding a professional competition can be recommended for implementation in other universities.

Keywords

• motivation for success
• competition behaviour
• pedagogical university
• young teachers
• professional skills competitions