Motivation for continuing education in distance education: an exploratory study with biology teachers

Abstract

A good strategy for become in-service education courses more attractive is to understand the teachers’ motivation to enroll in these courses. Recently, a new Biology curriculum for Basic Education was adopted in the State of São Paulo (Brazil). Therefore, the distance course investigated in this work was developed to help teachers adopt new teaching approaches within this new curriculum. This research aimed to identify the motivation of 53 Biology teachers to participate in this distance course. A survey with seven open questions was applied at the beginning of the course in the virtual learning environment. We found that most teachers stated that the main motivation to enroll in the distance course was related to the possibility to improve their knowledge about Biology. The main motivation to teach was related to the students' learning. Teachers also affirmed that the distance courses were more motivating than face-to-face learning because distance courses provided more flexibility. Based on our results, we highlight that distance courses for in-service teachers’ education need to be strongly related to the teachers’ expectations.  Maybe, it can reduce the dropout rates, which are common high in this kind of education.