Comparative Study on the Effects of University Teachers’ Teaching Experience and Gender on Their Motivational Level in EFL Context of Iran

Teacher’s motivation plays a key role in the field of second/foreign language (L2/FL) teaching. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the motivation levels of teachers in teaching English in FL settings. However, few studies have addressed teachers motivation in FL/L2 context. This study, thus, aimed to bridge the gap by comparing motivational level of teachers in terms of their teaching experience and gender. The participants were 50 teachers including 31 males and 19 females and their teaching experience was between 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, and 16 or more, they were teaching English at different universities in Golestan Province, Iran. A Language Teacher Motivation Source questionnaire was adapted from the existing literature. After piloting and validating the questionnaire, it was administered to the participating teachers. The questionnaire consisted of two parts: the first part included some items on demographic information of the participants The second part consisted of 36 items; participants indicated their agreements by selecting a choice on Likert- type scale whose values ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The results of the one-way ANOVAindicated that teachers teaching experience does not have any effect on their motivational level; that is, sources of motivation was similar for teachers with different teaching experiences. Moreover, the results of an Independent Sample Test revealed that there was no significant difference between male and female teachers in terms of their motivational level. The findings have some implications for university authorities and principals who are in charge of teachers employment

Keywords:

Motivation , teacher motivation , gender , teaching experience