How does public service motivation among teachers affect student performance in schools?

Lotte Bøgh Andersen; Eskil Heinesen; Lene HolmPedersen

doi:10.1093/jopart/mut082

How does public service motivation among teachers affect student performance in schools?

Lotte Bøgh Andersen, Eskil Heinesen, Lene HolmPedersen^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

72 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The literature expects public service motivation (PSM) to affect performance, but most of the existing studies of this relationship use subjective performance data and focus on output rather than outcome. This article investigates the association between PSM and the performance of Danish teachers using an objective outcome measure (the students' academic performance in their final examinations). Combining survey data and administrative register data in a multilevel data set, we are able to control very robustly for the specific characteristics of the students (n = 5,631), the schools (n = 85), and other teacher characteristics (n = 694) besides PSM. We find that PSM is positively associated with examination marks. The result indicates that PSM may be relevant for performance improvements.

Original language	English
Journal	Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
Volume	24
Issue number	3
Pages (from-to)	651-671
Number of pages	21
ISSN	1053-1858
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mut082
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2014

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10.1093/jopart/mut082

Cite this

@article{29057eee9808422982a9c02ce3d92e02,

title = "How does public service motivation among teachers affect student performance in schools?",

abstract = "The literature expects public service motivation (PSM) to affect performance, but most of the existing studies of this relationship use subjective performance data and focus on output rather than outcome. This article investigates the association between PSM and the performance of Danish teachers using an objective outcome measure (the students' academic performance in their final examinations). Combining survey data and administrative register data in a multilevel data set, we are able to control very robustly for the specific characteristics of the students (n = 5,631), the schools (n = 85), and other teacher characteristics (n = 694) besides PSM. We find that PSM is positively associated with examination marks. The result indicates that PSM may be relevant for performance improvements.",

author = "Andersen, {Lotte B{\o}gh} and Eskil Heinesen and Lene HolmPedersen",

year = "2014",

month = jan,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1093/jopart/mut082",

language = "English",

volume = "24",

pages = "651--671",

journal = "Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory",

issn = "1053-1858",