THE EFFECT OF A TEACHER'S SUBJECT-SPECIFIC TRAINING ON STUDENTS' PERCEIVED SUBJECT MOTIVATION: A FIXED-EFFECT ANALYSIS

Abstract

A teacher’s major and education level have been popular proxies among studies to measure a teacher’s subject matter knowledge (Coenen et al., 2018). Results from these studies have been mixed, finding either positive or no significant relationship between a teacher’s major and education level on student test scores. This paper looks at the effect of a teacher’s subject-specific training on student subject motivation, such as their perceived life and career relevance of the subjects taught. The HSLS 2009 dataset contains survey responses from two teachers per student for mathematics and science subjects, enabling the use of a fixed effects analysis to determine the causal effect. It finds that a teacher who has a major in his or her teaching subject has a positive effect on student subject motivation. Results were mostly insignificant when teachers were further sorted by whether they possessed a post-graduate degree in their teaching subject.