Public Service Motivation from the Point of View of Teachers and School Administrators: A Qualitative Study

Teachers and school administrators as public servants are people who devote themselves to the education of young people and raise up future generations. Due to their role in the transformation of the society and building of the future for new generations, it is important to what extent they adopt the ideals and motivation of public service. In this study, it is aimed to investigate how teachers and school administrators working in public primary and secondary schools conceptualize the public service motivation. The study was designed as qualitative research and the data were collected through interviews with teachers and administrators who worked at public schools for at least five years. Data were analyzed by using NVivo 10 package program and content analysis method. According to the findings obtained in the study, what participants understand from the concept of "public duty", why they have chosen to work in the public service, the challenging issues they come face to face with while performing their public service, the reasons which lower their public service motivations and the suggestions in terms of increasing the level of motivation have been explained.