Unraveling EFL Teacher Motivation for Pursuing a Master of Education Degree in the Chinese Context

In recent years, the topic of language teacher motivation has garnered significant attention within the realm of language teacher psychology. Researchers have delved into various aspects, including teachers' commitments to the teaching career, teachers' teaching motivation, and teachers' professional development motivation. Nevertheless, the motivation of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers to engage in ongoing in-service learning, particularly the pursuit of a Master of Education (Ed.M.) degree, has received comparatively less scrutiny. To bridge this gap, the present study adopted Boshier's Education Participation Scale (EPS) and Liu's seven-dimensional motivation framework to explore the motivation of 529 Chinese EFL teachers in their quest for an Ed.M. degree. Utilizing Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM), the analysis revealed seven types of key motivation: cognitive interest, social responsibility, academic information acquisition, academic achievement acquisition, school context, rival demand, and significant others. An examination of differences in EFL teacher motivation in terms of gender and school type showed that male teachers perceived significantly higher levels of cognitive interest and rival demand than female teachers did. And, teachers in regular schools reported significantly higher levels of significant others than those in key schools. We propose some future directions for EFL teacher motivation research.