Internationally, there’s an increasing expectation for teachers to inform educational decisions with data, since a growing body of evidence indicates that decisions  based on data have a positive impact on student results (Campbell & Levin, 2009; Carlson, Borman, & Robinson, 2011;Lai,McNaughton,Timperley, &Hsiao,2009). Teachers themselves, however, often have the feeling that they do not need such data, as they see their extensive experience as a solid and sufficient basis for decision making (Schildkamp & Kuiper, 2010). This paper sets out to explore how to get teachers motivated to use data and discusses the impact of the quality of motivation on data use. The following research questions are set forward: What is the impact of teachers’ motivation for data use on the use of data? What is the impact of decision making style and school factors on the motivation to use data?

Data in the context of schools can have a broad definition,  it covers all the information – quantitative as well as qualitative - that is collected en arranged to study certain aspects within the school (Robinson & Lai, 2006). This paper sets out from a well-defined data source to prevent conceptual confusion with teachers.  The schools involved in the research yearly use the same standardized tests, afterwards school advisory services provide them with a feedback report. The feedback report contains the Data: results of standardized test, on the individual (student) level and school level. Data use is conceptualized as the extent to which teachers use these feedback reports to underpin their decisions  at the classroom level.  Motivation for data use is studied using the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Gagné & Deci, 2000), that enables to elucidate which personal and contextual factors influence the motivation of teachers and its impact on data use behavior and attitude. SDT emphasizes the quality, instead of the quantity of motivation (Vansteenkiste, Lens, & Deci, 2006) and describes different sorts of motivation over a continuum of controlled to autonomous motivation. Additionally, the concept of efficacy is used in this study,  a critical component of motivation (Bandura, 1997). Teachers have efficacy beliefs about themselves as well as about their entire school, so called collective efficacy (Goddard, Hoy, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2004). Hoy, Tarter and Woolfolk (2006) state that collective efficacy is tightly woven together with academic emphasis (on high achievement)  and faculty trust. These 3 properties come together in a positive academic environment characterized by the label ‘academic optimism’ that shapes school norms and behavioural expectations. Further, the study also takes the decision making style of teachers into account. An intuitive style is seen as unconscious, strongly related with feelings, fast and triggered automatically. A rational style on the other hand is rather slow, conscious, controlled and can be made explicit (Epstein, 2008). This study investigates the relation between these individual and school features and motivation for data use.

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