A Study of Motivation Barriers and Willingness for Elementary School Teachers Attending In-service Education

[[abstract]]Due to factors like the trend of life-long study, historical changes, the tide of educational reform, and easy access to recurrent education, in recent years, elementary school teachers have begun to take part in in-service education on an unprecedented scale. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Education, elementary school teachers? records of formal schooling have arisen year by year. Till 2007, 17,841 elementary school teachers had gotten master?s degree, occupying about 17.6%. So we can see elementary school teachers are highly motivated and willing to take part in in-service educatio at research institute, while at the same time, there are many barriers to such a practice such as family responsibility, work burdens, and lack of information or confidence. This thesis aims to explore the relation among the motivation, barriers and willingness for in-service education. A questionnaire has been made with elementary school teachers. There are 640 questionnaires issued, with valid questionnaire recovery rate of 77.7%. Tools such as analysis of verifying factors and variables as well as structural equation modeling are used in order to know, first of all, the influence of different demographic and statistical variables and training behavior variables on the motivation, barriers and willingness for in-service education, and then, the relation among the motivation, barriers and willingness for in-service education, and finally, elementary school teachers? willingness for in-service education. The results are summarized as follows: 1. In elementary school education, the deeply rooted idea of [husbands should earn money and wives should do housework] is still prevailing. 2. Expected by the outside world as well as pursuing their own career development, teachers at 30 years old or below are highly motivated and willing to take part in in-service education. 3. Elementary school teachers whose level of education is below research institute is less confident in in-service education. 4. Elementary school teachers who assume directors simultaneously are active in taking part in in-service education, while form teachers are relatively passive. 5. Two strategies used to encourage elementary school teachers to take part in in-service education are strengthening motives for in-service education and reducing barriers to in-service education. 6. To strengthen elementary school teachers? motives in terms of [social relations] can strengthen their overall motives for in-service education. 7. To reduce the barriers in terms of [institute barriers] for elementary school teachers can reduce, for them, the overall barriers to in-service education. 8. To raise individual national elementary school teacher?s willingness for in-service education can raise the overall willingness of the teachers for the practice