Exogenous Shocks and Teachers’ Motivation to Learn: Pandemic and Professional Development in the United States

Abstract In this article, we examine how the COVID-19 pandemic, an exogenous shock to the United States education system, shaped teachers’ readiness and willingness to engage in professional development (PD). We borrow the concept of exogenous shocks from economics and sociology to illustrate how education practice can be driven as much by factors outside the field (e.g., viral outbreaks) as by those within it (e.g., policy and scholarship). Using the four substantive domains in Appova and Arbaugh’s (2018) framework on teachers' motivation to learn in PD—teacher education and PD, educational psychology, andragogy and adult learning, and policy and accountability—we argue that teacher motivation, rather than mere PD structure or content, is the true linchpin of teacher learning. In that light, we describe some of the pandemic’s demotivational effects on teachers’ learning in the U.S. and offer a roadmap for scholars to center motivation in future PD research. We outline several pathways of inquiry, including a renewed focus on links between teacher motivation and PD effectiveness, the generation and application of new measures and models of teachers’ motivation to learn, and the use of PD as an instrument for teacher resilience and efficacy after an exogenous shock. Keywords: professional development, teacher learning, teacher motivation, COVID-19, pandemic