Why People Choose Teaching as a Career: An Expectancy-Value Approach to Understanding Teacher Motivation

Personal responsibility is a key construct in multiple theoretical frameworks in psychology. These include attribution theory (Weiner, 1995), the job characteristics model (Hackman & Oldham, 1976), personality frameworks (Bierhoff et al., 2005; D. G. Winter, 1992), and, to some extent, self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987, 1997) and self-determination theory (Bacon, 1991; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Deci, Spiegel, Ryan, Koestner, & Kauffman, 1982). Collectively, research from these perspectives provides overwhelming support that one’s sense of personal responsibility is associated with an individual’s psychological well-being and performance. Examples include links between personal responsibility and professional success (Hackman, 1980; D. G. Winter, 1991), goal commitment, achievement motivation and self-efficacy (Bierhoff et al., 2005; Guskey, 1988), and self-regulation and emotional vulnerability (Higgins, 1997; Higgins, Bond, Klein, & Strauman, 1986; Higgins, Roney, Crowe, & Hymes, 1994). Thus, considerable evidence suggests that responsibility has important implications for motivation and emotion.