Leveraging correlates of innovative teacher behaviour for educational development in developing societies

Abstract

The public system of elementary education in developing countries is often criticized for its poor performance, but a better understanding of the innovative teachers in this system who achieve their educational goals might offer insights for teacher development. What are the specific individual factors associated with the performance of such teachers? We draw on on-going work to identify the correlates of innovative work performance of government school teachers. It was hypothesized that intrinsic motivation and creative self-efficacy were high correlates of workplace innovative performance, openness to experience and proactivity, perceived job complexity and learning orientation of teachers were moderate correlates, and demographic factors were weak correlates. Three hundred and forty seven teachers were selected by systematic circular random sampling from 5650 teachers whose work had been peer-rated for innovativeness and performance. Intrinsic motivation of teachers was found to be the most significant correlate of innovative performance, along with qualification in a teacher eligibility test conducted by the government. All other factors did not seem to be critical. One implication for large-scale teacher training is the design of a model of professional development which relies on the principle of learning from the motivated teachers—those who have realized their educational goals, regardless of the constraints that are a feature of the more general educational context. This is best done through decentralized peer-driven teacher networks that seek to highlight the work of the innovative teachers as motivational triggers for the wider teaching community.