Research proposal writer
2.1 Different ways of teachers’ motivation
There are different ways of motivating teachers which include;
Intrinsic rewards like recognition creates role models and communicates the standards. These constitute the great performance. Bennell (2004) noted that the emergence of a sizeable private education sector has further diversified the teaching force and improved their recognition. Private sector teachers are often seen in a more positive light by parents and the wider public because they are harder working and usually less well paid, but achieve better learning outcomes. Where private sector provision is growing rapidly with strong public approval (like in Masaka District), this is a strong intrinsic motivator to the otherwise downward pressures on teacher status. Consequently, this study examined the effect of intrinsic motivation on the performance of teachers in Kimaanya-Kyabakuza Division, Masaka District.
A study of what motivates senior managers by Analoui (2010) revealed discontent with the managerial style and traditional attitudes of top management who took things for granted. Good work and high quality performance were not often recognized. The old style and culture of passive interaction still persisted especially in ministries and other government organizations where some top management was referred to as ―old guards‖ who had not really changed. Lack of recognition is not always a direct consequence of the presence of old values and traditional managerial styles.
Torrington et al (2002) on the other hand indicated that poor human resource management seriously de-motivates employees. Teacher management at the national and sub-national levels is nothing short of chaotic in many countries. In most of Africa,
Management styles tend to be authoritarian with limited participation, delegation, and communication with respect to major school management functions. Teachers subjected to these types of management regimes feel like ‗we are treated as children‘. The extent to which teacher grievances are addressed is also a key issue. The high turnover of head teachers in many countries is particularly disruptive and frequently bad for teacher morale. Many managers are acting‘ for very long periods. Effective management training programmes for head teachers are necessary to lead to noticeable improvements in teacher behaviour and performance
Meir (2012) noted that while workers are interested in advancing their financial position, there are many other considerations such as opinions of their fellow workers, their comfort and enjoyment on the job and their long range security that prevents them from making a direct automatic positive response to an incentive plan. This implies that for employees to perform and have better results they must be motivated by a token of appreciation.
Bennell (2004) further noted that most teachers want to be posted to urban schools for both professional and personal reasons. The size of the rural-urban divide in most countries creates enormous disincentives to being posted to a rural school. He indicated that teachers want to remain in urban areas for a variety of reasons, most notably the availability of good schooling for their own children, employment opportunities for spouses and other household members, the desire to maintain often close knit family and friendship networks, opportunities for further study, and poor working and living conditions in rural schools3. The much greater opportunities for earning secondary incomes in urban locations is also a major factor. Being posted to a rural primary school can, therefore, severely affect their ability to undertake further studies as well as earn additional income.
Lindner (1995) notes that, though monetary methods of motivation have little value, many firms still use money as a major incentive. She adds that wages are normally paid per hour worked and workers receive money at the end of the week and overtime paid for any additional hours worked for whereas salaries are based on a year’s work and are paid at the end of each month.
Chien-Chung (2003), noted that piece rate is the paying of a worker per item produced in a certain period of time. Chien-Chung (2003), asserts that this increases speed of work and therefore productivity. This is in agreement with the earlier revelations made (Taylor, 1993) ,who notes that though the employees will care less about the quality of their work, their sped improves with the piece rate practice of motivation.
Doellgast (2006), advanced that fringe benefits are often known as “perks” and are items an employee receives in addition to their normal wage and salary. These include company cars, health insurance, free meals and education. He asserts that these encourage loyalty to the company such employees may stay longer with the company.
This is paid to those employees who meet certain targets. The targets are often evaluated and reviewed in regular appraisals with managers. Doellgast (2006), discourages the use of this practice of motivation. He asserts that it can be very difficult to measure employee performance more especially those in the service industry and that the practice does not promote teamwork.
Marler (2000), indicated that when your employees function as a team, you ought to think like a coach; reward the whole group for a job well done. He says this will boost morale both personally and collectively. He adds that employee incentive programs such as small bonuses serve to better the morale of an individual employee and that of a group as a whole by making them more satisfied. This is in agreement with (Likert, 2004), study which concluded that since everybody wants to feel appreciated and special for the work done, they can therefore be motivated by appreciating them and making them feel special. He adds that the more satisfied the employee is, the better he/she will perform. Mwanje (2000) believes that non-financial incentives are the most important motivators of human behavior in terms of the needs of human beings. He refers non-financial incentives to non-monetary ways of rewarding employees. They are opportunities that help employees in the accomplishments of the set goals. They include;
Hammer (2000), asserts that an individual will be motivated to do something if they have the mental ability and skills to accomplish it. He writes that when employees are trained, they get the knowledge of performing tasks and challenges and thereby feel less intimidated by their jobs/tasks.
Marin (2006), states that variable pay or pay-for-performance is a compensation program in which a portion of a person’s pay is considered “at risk.” Variable pay can be tied to the performance of the company, the results of a business unit, an individual’s accomplishments, or any combination of these. It can take many forms, including bonus programs, stock options, and one-time awards for significant accomplishments. Some companies choose to pay their employees less than competitors but attempt to motivate and reward employees using a variable pay program instead. According to Shawn (2007) , the test of a good pay-for-performance plan is simple therefore it must motivate managers to produce earnings growth that far exceeds the extra cost of the program though employees should be made to stretch, the goals must be within reach.
Previously the territory of upper management and large companies, stock options have become an increasingly popular method in recent years of rewarding middle management and other employees in both mature companies and start-ups (Jones. 2001). According to Porter (2007), employee stock-option programs give employees the right to buy a specified number of a company’s shares at a fixed price for a specified period of time (usually around ten years). They are generally authorized by a company’s board of directors and approved by its shareholders. The number of options a company can award to employees is usually equal to a certain percentage of the company’s shares outstanding.
Cash and noncash recognition programmes are rated as the most powerful tools of motivation. People need to know how well they have achieved their objectives and if the employer appreciates them. Armstrong & Murlis (1994 ) and Flannery et al, (1996) believe that appreciation can be achieved in various ways such as naming the employees who have done well in the company’s newsletter, awarding employees with cash bonuses, or allowing employees to go on vacation. They further maintain that the recognition programs does not change employees’ behaviour, or encourage an organization’s nonperformers to work harder. The recognition program on the other hand recognizes outstanding behaviour by communicating to employees the value placed on that behaviour.
This performance option distributes profits from improvements in productivity, cost savings, and quality, with employees who are members of a group that is involved in accomplishing these improvements. The advantage of gain sharing plans is that they offer cost savings for the organization and accumulate money that the organization would otherwise not have earned. Employees can see how they influence change and how they are rewarded for improvement. The concept of gain sharing is easy, but the implementation is difficult. The organization has to determine how much of the achievement is from employees and how much is from the result of new technology (Flannery et al, 1996).
It was revealed that when an employee does one kind of job week-in week-out, they will always get de-motivated to carry on with their work more especially when the work is not very challenging. She suggested that employees need to be rotated around the organization to meet new challenging tasks in order to keep their minds busy and feel like they are doing something for the organization (Fowler, 2001). However, Clifton (2002) disagrees with these revelations. Clifton(2002) , asserts that job rotation does not actually lead to motivation of the employee; it just helps the employees not to get bored with their work. In other words it helps the employers to maintain a certain level of motivation in employees.
Managers need to be clear when talking to their employees and let them know that their opinion or views are important in building a viable company. Strong communications skills are necessary when assigning tasks to the employees so that the tasks are clearly defined and understood. Marie (2000), asserts that the managers ought to communicate to their subordinates in such a way that the subordinates feel like they are not forced to do a particular task. Jean (2002), also agrees that managers should develop an inclusive approach to decision making if at all they are to increase their employee motivation levels.
2.2 Different ways of improving teachers’ motivation
Improvement of a teachers’ job satisfaction by encouraging them to work hard and be rewarded, Job satisfaction is the level of contentment of individuals with their jobs. Locke (1976) defines job satisfaction as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one‘s job or job experiences. There are a variety of factors that influence a person‘s level of job satisfaction. These include income, perceived fairness of promotion system, quality of working condition, social relationships, leadership and the job itself. Job satisfaction or dissatisfaction of teachers affects their relationship with co-workers, administration and parents.
The study of the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance has a controversial history. The Hawthorne studies, conducted in the 1930s, are often credited with making researchers aware of the effects of employee attitudes on performance. Shortly after the Hawthorne studies, researchers began taking a critical look at the notion that a ―happy worker is a productive worker.‖ According to Iaffaldano and Muchinsky (1985), most of the earlier reviews of the literature suggested a weak and somewhat inconsistent relationship between job satisfaction and performance. A review of the literature in 1985 suggested that the statistical correlation between job satisfaction and performance was about. Thus, these authors concluded that the presumed relationship between job satisfaction and performance was a management fad‖ and illusory. This study had an important impact on researchers, and in some cases on organizations, with some managers and HR practitioners concluding that the relationship between job satisfaction and performance was trivial.
Better rewarding of teachers, Rewarding employees is an important factor in employee motivation. Most organizations have gained the immense progress by fully complying with their business strategy through a well balanced reward and recognition programs for employee. Motivation of employees and their productivity can be enhanced through providing them effective recognition which ultimately results in improved performance of organizations. The entire success of an organization is based on how an organization keeps its employees motivated and in what way they evaluate the performance of employees for job compensation. At times management pays more attention to extrinsic rewards but intrinsic rewards are equally important in employee motivation. Intangible or psychological rewards like appreciation and recognition plays a vital role in motivating employee and increasing his performance. Andrew (2004) concludes that commitment of employees is based on rewards and recognition.
Glewwe et al. (2003) found that in the sample they are studying in Kenya, teachers are absent 20% of the time. Absenteeism rate as high as 26% of the time have been found in Uganda. Madagascar suffers from the same difficulties. Teachers also often hold a second job.
Remuneration is typically utilized to energize, direct or control employee behavior. An organization exists to accomplish specific goals and objectives. The individuals in an organization have their own needs. The system that an organization uses to reward employee can play an important role in the organization‘s effort to gain the competitive advantage and to achieve its major objectives. Compensation system should attract and retain the talent an organization needs, encourage employees to develop the skills and abilities they need, motivate employees and create the type of team culture in which employees care about the organization‘s success. Through motivation individuals willingly engage in some behavior (Heneman et al, 1980). In retention, linking pay to performance is likely to help improve workforce composition (Cole, 1997). High performers tend to gain a larger share of compensation resources and thus are motivated to stay with the organization.
Greenberg and Liebman (1990) mentioned that rewards fall into three groups: material, social, and activity. From the simplicity of straight salaries to the complexities of stock option programs, compensation packages are a subset of the broader class of material rewards. Social rewards, which operate on the interpersonal level, include identification with the company or recognition by peers, customers, and competitors.
Increment in teachers’ salaries, The risk of a decrease in salaries, sometimes accompanied by a decline in the status of the profession relative to others, is that teachers incentives to provide quality teaching might become (or remain) insufficient. This worry has been expressed by the UNICEF (1999) that underlines the fact that low wages drive teachers into other activities to the detriment of teaching, or by the African Development Bank (1998) that identifies low salaries as the most harmful factor for the education sector in general. In recent years, in many developing countries high levels of teacher turnover and absenteeism have indeed become entrenched.
Training of employees, In organizations where employees receive the proper training needed to assume greater responsibilities, turnover rates are generally lower. According to Walsh and Taylor (2007), several studies show that training activities are correlated with productivity and retention. The use of formal training programs is associated with significantly higher productivity growth. Extensive training are more likely to be captured by the firm if employees are motivated to stay and contribute to the firm‘s success fostered in part by selective hiring, competitive pay packages and team-orientated work environments. Organizations with extensive training opportunities should experience lower turnover rates. However, an interesting finding included a positive relationship between training and the discharge rate. They theorize that companies that provide more training are concerned about employee skills and performance, and thus experience a high percentage of employee terminations.
Krueger and Rouse (2008) found that general training and specific skills are many times embedded in one another. They found that employees that attended training, regardless of its specificity, became more invested employees. These employees were shown to seek more job upgrades, receive more performance awards, and have better job attendance than those that did not attend training. The general skills training program which was paid completely by the employer essentially led to less employee turnover. It can be argued that the expenditure of effort and time led these employees to become more committed to the organization. Many scholars agree that organizations that train their employees consistently have better outcomes than those that do not. When business environments change quickly and abruptly, it is typically the companies with the best trained employees that adapt and adjust most efficiently.
Glance, Hogg, and Huberman (2007) determined these statements to be accurate in their study that looked at training and turnover from the perspective of evolving organizations. The researchers affirmed that training encourages ―spontaneous cooperation‖ in many large companies. Even in fast moving and ever evolving industries, the cooperation that can be achieved through training could lessen the need for complicated company policies. This ―spontaneous cooperation‖ which results from training is due to the training participant‘s sense of debt to the company.
The main aim of teacher training is to develop educational skills that are compatible with education policies and to enable teachers to deliver these policies. According to Gustafsson, (2003), it is a complex task to define teaching practices that have an impact on student performance since what counts as an effective teaching strategy varies by student age group, personality, learning ability and social background, and different strategies call for different teacher skills. Hedges & Greenwald (2012) found that easy-to-gather, formal measurements such as student test scores, teacher qualifications and years of teaching experience are insufficient in evaluating teacher competences.
Improvement on work situation , According to Judge & Church (2000) research studies across many years, organizations, and types of jobs show that when employees are asked to evaluate different facets of their job such as supervision, pay, promotion opportunities, coworkers, and so forth, the nature of the work itself generally emerges as the most important job facet. This is not to say that well-designed compensation programs or effective supervision are unimportant; rather, it is that much can be done to influence job satisfaction by ensuring work is as interesting and challenging as possible. Unfortunately, some managers think employees are most desirous of pay to the exclusion of other job attributes such as interesting work. For example, according Kovach (1995) in a study examining the importance of job attributes, employees ranked interesting work as the most important job attribute and good wages ranked fifth, whereas when it came to what managers
Improvement on Work Environment , The work environment has a significant impact upon employee performance and productivity. By work environment we mean those processes, systems, structures tools or conditions in the work place that impact favorable or unfavorable individual performance. The work environment also includes policies; rules, culture, resources, working relationships, work location and internal and external environmental factors, all of which influence the ways those employees perform their job functions.
According to Clements-Croome (2000), environment in which people work affects both job performance and job satisfaction. The tasks workers perform in modern office buildings are increasingly complex and depend on sophisticated technology; and companies whose occupancy costs are increasing generally seek to reduce them without adversely affecting the workers. Such workspace decisions aspire to create an investment in employees‘ quality of life, the argument being made that measurable productivity increases will result. Dilani (2004) adds that, researchers are increasingly finding links between employee health and aspects of the physical environment at work such as indoor air quality and lighting.
Arrangement of the Workspace , Whereas size measures the amount of space per employee, arrangement refers to the distance between people and facilities. Robbins (2003) says that the arrangement of one‘s workspace is important primarily because it significantly influences social interaction. An employee‘s work location therefore is likely to influence the information to which one is privy and one‘s inclusion or exclusion from organization‘s events. Whether you are on a certain grapevine network or not, for instance, will be largely determined by where you are physically located in the organization. According to Zweigenhaft (1976), one topic that have received a considerable amount of attention is furniture arrangements in traditional offices. Unlike factory floors, individuals typically have some leeway in laying out their office furniture.
The work environment is also an important determining factor in teacher motivation. The teacher‘s working environment in Nigeria has been described as the most impoverished of all sectors of the labour force (Nigeria Primary Education Commission (1998). Facilities in most 30 schools are dilapidated and inadequate, (Adelabu 2003). Kazeem (1999) has recommended that greater attention should be given to improving work-related conditions of teachers to improve the quality of education. In particular, there should be improvements in the supply of teaching and learning materials and general classroom environment to improve student learning.
Luthans (1998) argues that if people work in a clean, friendly environment they will find it easier to come to work. If the opposite should happen, they will find it difficult to accomplish tasks. Working conditions are only likely to have a significant impact on job satisfaction when, for example, the working conditions are either extremely good or extremely poor. Moreover, employee complaints regarding working conditions are frequently related to manifestations of underlying problems. Teachers‘ workload, changes in the education system and a lack of discipline amongst some of the learners may be some of the reasons why teachers want to exit the profession. According to Bishay (1996), the working environment of teachers also determines the attitude and behaviour of teachers towards their work. He indicates that research has shown that improvement in teacher motivation has a positive effect on both teachers and learners. Moreover, within the teaching profession, for example, there are different working conditions based on the past allocation of resources to schools. Ngidi and Sibaya (2002) found that, in disadvantaged schools, working conditions are often not conducive to teaching and learning.
Teachers have both intrinsic and extrinsic needs. A teacher who is intrinsically motivated may be observed to undertake a task for its own sake, for the satisfaction it provides or for the feeling of accomplishment and self-actualization. On the other hand, an extrinsically motivated teacher may perform the activity/duty in order to obtain some reward such as salary. Extrinsic motivation plays an important part in people’s life. It is very important too strong in influencing a person’s behavior. Therefore, the aim of the organization should be to build on and enhance the intrinsic motivation for teachers to teach effectively and at the same time, to supply some extrinsic motivation along the way for college improvement (Kerlinger, 1993).
Dessler (2005) examined that from the perspective of teachers in schools, job performance and motivation are different. Motivation is an input to work, and job performance is an output from this motivation. From a teacher’s perspective motivation and job performance may be difficult to distinguish and motivation is often inferred from the output produced, the possibility of high motivation and low output or low motivation and high output is often not considered.
The implications of either neglecting motivation or considering it a part of job performance for the empirically observed relationship between job performance and motivation can be significant. If effort is costly for an employee, ignoring effort can bias the estimated effect of job performance, because effort should increase job performance. As satisfaction is another very important thing in terms of motivation so employees are when satisfied with their job, organization environment, salaries, rewards, then automatically get motivated and show their best efforts towards their job performance. Motivation plays a great role because it is critical for the achievement of organizational goal and to bring better teachers performance or effectiveness.
2.3 Different ways of improving pupil involvement in physical education
One of the essential conditions for the effective exercise of human rights is that everyone should be free to develop and preserve his or her physical, intellectual and moral powers, and that access to physical education and sport should consequently be assured and guaranteed for every individual (UNESCO, 1980, p.22).”
The PE and sports charter, among other proclamations, pointed out that the practice of PE and sport is a fundamental right for all; it is an essential element of life-long education in the overall education system; it must meet individual and social needs; adequate facilities and equipment are essential; teaching, coaching and administration should be performed by qualified personnel; and research and evaluation are indispensable. Components of the development of
PE and sport (UNESCO, 1980).
Despite the inclusion of PE and sport in the school curriculum in Kenya, researchers have pointed out that it is not emphasized as well as it should be (Mahlmann et al., 1993; Wamukoya, 1994; Njororai 1990, 1994, 1996). This study, therefore, was aimed at establishing the actual practice of PE and sport in Kenyan primary schools and proffering possible suggestions that could enhance its effectiveness.
Schools can provide many opportunities for young people to engage in vigorous physical activity and are thus better placed amongst societal institutions to motivate young people to live active lifestyles (Jenkinson & Benson, 2010). This is not to downplay the contribution of clubs but it is in schools where children are introduced to PE and sport in a formal setting and with a curriculum to guide such exposure. PE and sport have been reported to have immense benefits for children, including improved academic performance, good health, and positive social skills among others (Almond, 1989; Drewe, 2001; Galloway, 2007; Macfadyen & Bailey, 2002). Unfortunately, the rapid advancement in technology has led many children to engage in physically sedentary activities such as surfing the internet and playing computer games, rather than more active physical activities. Consequently, there is an increase in cases of obesity and heart disease, and a general lack of fitness among young people (Hardman, 2008).
