The Social Context as a Determinant of Teacher Motivational Strategies in Physical Education

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT AS 13

try to be very thorough in my planning because I'm seeking to teach at the
moment in a way that is best practice rather than (2 second pause). The danger
is when you're qualified to get into bad habits and to do the lazy thing,
whereas, there’s no room for that because I am being observed.

Interviewer: Right OK, and what are your thoughts about that pressure then?

Austin: I think it’s healthy, I respond to it. It keeps me on track and means that

I'm not lazy in my teaching.

Teacher evaluations are a necessary part of any teaching context. It is encouraging to
see that trainee teachers may not feel undue negative pressure from being evaluated; yet, the
above excerpts also show how the evaluation of qualified teachers may promote negative
feelings and stifle their use of adaptive motivational teaching strategies. This implies that
when qualified teachers are being assessed, an emphasis should be placed on further training,
as opposed to an emphasis on school ratings from inspectors (as highlighted by Carl). This
change of emphasis may help qualified teachers to value the evaluation process and enhance
their experiences of teaching.

Conforming to Other Teachers’ Methods

According to Pelletier et al. (2002), teachers’ experience pressure to conform to their
colleagues’ teaching methods, yet only Gary, an Australian teacher now working in southern
England, indicated this. Unlike Pelletier et al’s findings, Gary perceived this pressure to be a
positive factor in his teaching:

Interviewer: Do you feel any pressure from any sources when thinking about
how you’re going to teach?

Gary: There's a lot more pressure on having very similar lesson plans to a lot
of other teachers. Like now they’re trying to bring over the four phase lesson,

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