״כשיהיה להם פה טוב הם ילמדו": שיח מורות על מוטיבציה של תלמידים

Teacher's professional learning about student motivation can improve their teaching and their students' learning. To promote the understanding of teacher discourse in professional communities as a setting for teachers' learning about motivation, this study is an examination of the degree (frequency and scope) to which teachers talk about motivation in professional community meetings, which aspects of motivation they consider, and whether they discuss them specifically or generally. The results show that in their community meetings, teachers discuss students' motivation to learn. They describe motivation mostly via behavioral engagement, tend to analyze external factors that influence student motivation, in particular instructional practices, and seldom discuss factors internal to students (e.g., goals) that can affect their motivation. Furthermore, teachers tend to talk about motivation concretely and pragmatically. While previous studies of teachers' perceptions of students' motivation have used interviews and questionnaires, this study characterized teacher discourse through observation of naturalistic discourse, thus contributing to an understanding of the affordances and constraints of such discourse as a basis for professional teachers' learning about motivation.