Motivation for the teaching profession: Assessing psychometric properties and factorial validity of the orientation for teaching survey on in-service teachers

Previous studies that used the Orientation for Teaching Survey (OTS), assessing motivation for the teaching profession, yielded inconsistent results regarding the OTS's factorial structure. Since these studies focused on pre-service teachers with limited teaching experience, our main goal was to assess the psychometric properties and factorial validity of the OTS on in-service teachers. An additional goal was to compare the motivation of male and female teachers, and teachers working in primary and secondary schools. The OTS was administered to 384 teachers in Serbia. After confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the six-factor model proposed by the authors of the OTS did not fit the data well, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted, and a two-factor solution was accepted (Extrinsic-Intrinsic model). Women and primary school teachers scored higher on Intrinsic motivation. Results point to the need for further exploration of differences in the motivation of pre- and in-service teachers and changes in teacher motivation over time.