Teachers need more than knowledge: Why motivation, emotion, and self-regulation are indispensable

Abstract

Abstract It is plausible to assume that teachers need motivation, emotions, and self-regulation to teach and promote students’ learning. However, as documented in this special issue, extant research is inconsistent and has documented weak effects of these teacher variables at best. I discuss possible reasons for this paradoxical failure to more fully document the importance of motivation, emotion, and self-regulation. Specifically, in addition to conceptual problems, research has focused too much on using between-person designs, variables with truncated distributions and reduced variance, and samples from single Western countries. To better understand the effects of teacher variables on student outcomes, we need to (1) develop and test more fine-grained theoretical models explaining the mechanisms mediating these effects, (2) complement between-teacher research by within-teacher studies, and (3) examine teacher-student processes across cultural and historical contexts. Collaboration with other disciplines may be needed, including economics, sociology, political science, computer science, and history.