What Keeps Secondary School Teachers Motivated? A Qualitative Study from Urban Indian Classrooms

Teacher motivation is widely recognized as central to instructional quality and teacher retention, yet limited research has examined how it is experienced and sustained within policy-driven, high-pressure school systems. This qualitative study explores how secondary school teachers in Bengaluru, India, understand and maintain motivation in their everyday professional practice. Drawing on six in-depth interviews and reflexive thematic analysis, five interrelated drivers were identified: student engagement, emotional connection, instructional autonomy, collegial support, and recognition. Teachers described motivation not as a stable trait, but as a dynamic process continually shaped through relationships, daily pedagogical decisions, mentoring roles, creative planning, and small acts of professional agency. By foregrounding teachers’ lived experiences, the findings complement large-scale motivation research and offer insight into how motivation is relationally constructed and negotiated within structural constraints. The study underscores the importance of school environments that protect autonomy, acknowledge emotional labour, and cultivate trust as conditions for sustaining long-term teacher engagement.