Understanding the Teacher Motivation: A Synthesis of Key Influencing Factors from the Literature

This study explored the factors affecting teacher motivation with recommendations given by the 68 published research studies. The 68 research studies were conducted across the world that is, in the U.S., Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, and Tanzania. This study was conducted to review the recruited published literature based on their results and the way of researching to understand teacher motivation. Furthermore, it was studied from some immense perspectives to highlight the factors affecting teacher motivation contextually to recommend a particular way of coping with the hindering faces of teachers. All the selected studies were conducted with diverse approaches and different contexts providing similar and dissimilar insights as the findings. The core factors of positive and effective teacher motivation include the high salary, financial incentives, the feeling of autonomy, self-motivation, professional development, job design, content knowledge, effective working conditions, performance management system, students’ willingness to learn, positive responses from students and using diverse approaches. On the other hand, unfavorable policies regarding teaching, low salaries, lack of resources, and a heavy workload were found the main factors affecting negatively teacher motivation, whose continuity affects the psychological conditions of teachers.