The interconnection between teacher motivation and identity construction: an interpretative phenomenological approach

Drawing on the interpretative phenomenological approach, this study reports on the nexus between teacher motivation and identity construction. Adopting a theoretical framework that involves the role of self-efficacy, career choice, goals, and motivational sustainers and underminers in teacher motivation and identity construction, we show how historic-sociocultural factors come to profoundly contribute to the teachers’ constructed identities and the motivational fluctuations they experience. In particular, motivation and identity were defined by our teachers as transcending in-class events toward macro-structural forces that shape the overarching configuration of their professionalism. In this sense, investment, commitment, emotional well-being, and socio-economic adequacy were the sites of the clash between contextual particularities and the teachers’ motivation-identity capitals. Based on the findings, we provide implications for how to leverage the potential of the nexus between motivation and identity in teacher education courses to positively contribute to teacher professional development.