Chinese teachers’ perspectives on teachers’ commitment to change
Authors: Liu Peng 
Published: September 2016

Purpose

– The willingness of teachers to be part of and contribute to education reform is crucial for its success and effectiveness. Based on the motivation theory of Bandura (1986), Leithwoodet al.(1999) conceptualized teachers’ motivation as part of educational change and described it using four dimensions including personal goals, context beliefs, personal beliefs, and emotional arousal. They also defined teachers’ commitment to change as teachers’ identification with or desire to be part of the change process. To date, most studies relating to teacher commitment to change have been conducted quantitatively, with comparatively little qualitative investigation into teachers’ lived experiences during a period of curricular reform. The purpose of this paper is to fill this qualitative gap in the literature and describes the realities of Chinese secondary teachers during a period of curricular reform. It investigated how the four dimensions of teachers’ commitment to change interact with one another during the change process, and how internal and external school factors affect teachers’ levels of commitment to change.

Design/methodology/approach

– In this research, the purposive sampling strategy was used. Age, gender, years of service, and the type of school at which teachers taught were taken into consideration. In all, 23 Chinese teachers with different numbers of years of work experience participated in this study. According to Hargreaves (2005), teachers can be categorized into three groups based on their years of working experience. Teachers with one to five years’ teaching experience are regarded as early career teachers, teachers with six to ten years of teaching as mid-career teachers, and teachers with more than ten years of working experience as experts. The samples all had upper secondary school teaching experience. They were all certified teachers in China. Their years of working experience ranged from 1 to 5, 6 to 10, and more than 11 years. Their teaching subjects included English, literature, math, geography, physics, biology, and chemistry. Semi-structured, open-ended, in-depth interviews were used to collect data. Open-ended interviews were used to give teachers the opportunity to expand and elaborate upon their perception and experience of their commitment to change and describe in detail their experiences in school contexts where their commitment to change was supported or hindered.

Findings

– The research revealed that teachers in different age groups had different perceptions of teachers’ commitment to change and also that internal and external organizational factors have different effects on their perceptions. This study seeks to contribute to teachers’ professional development in the Chinese school context and may help school administrators across cultures to adopt more appropriate methods for realizing effective change in their schools.

Originality/value

– This study seeks an in-depth understanding of Chinese teachers’ motivation to be part of school reform, in particular the motivation process of Chinese teachers with different amounts of teaching experience. It contributes to the understanding of effective education change in China and other similar contexts.