What motivates us to teach?

Dear Sir

The internal reward that faculty members receive from teaching medical students is critical to the quality of teaching and to the overall success of an educational program. (Kanter 2012, p. 679; emphases added)

Motivation is the desire to do something, but there are different factors involved in why we do the things we do, and how we do the things we do. Since there is evidence that a teacher's internal desire to teach has a direct impact on student enthusiasm for the subject and level of achievement, we were interested in exploring the intrinsic motivation of health professionals to teach.

We conducted eight in-depth interviews with physicians and other healthcare professionals who are teaching various classes in Bachelor courses of healthcare professions using a purposive sampling of highly motivated teachers based on the importance of accessing ‘key informants’. Interviews were transcribed, coded and thematically analysed.

Participants reported a strong interest in their field of practice and the subject matter of their instruction; they enjoyed their own learning while teaching. They stated an internal desire to impart knowledge for its own sake and showed concern for the effectiveness of their teaching. They also described a strong desire to establish teacher–student rapport and reported that feedback from students was crucial in maintaining their motivation to teach. We arranged these results into four themes that suggested an intrinsic motivation to teach: interest in the subject matter, interest in students’ development, interest in establishing teacher-student rapport and the importance of students’ feedback.

We believe that teaching is likely to be most effective when the teacher is simultaneously interested in the subject matter and in the students’ development. Self-determination Theory (Ryan & Deci 2000) predicts that teachers will be intrinsically motivated for tasks that evoke feelings of competence. While our teachers certainly experience competence in their fields of practise while teaching students, the critical theme that emerged here is the need to experience satisfaction from the students’ development. Being able to help students to progress, however, may be more dependent on the educational know-how, than on the professional expertise.

We need further research to determine the significance of each factor – the teachers’ enthusiasm for the subject matter and teaching process – and correlate them with the quality of the teaching performance. A better understanding of the factors that enhance a teacher's intrinsic motivation can help to optimise educational environments and staff development programmes.