The IUS/university of Klagenfurt regularly organizes special professional development programs for teachers in Austria. The programs are orientated towards action research and support teachers in developing their teaching skills and updating their knowledge of the subjects they teach. The teachers attending the courses systematically reflect their professional work and are obliged to write case studies about innovations in their schools. However, for many of them the writing process proves to be very difficult. They write first drafts, get feedback and eventually improve their texts. They discuss their papers in groups in which mutual understanding and constructive criticism are fostered. Nevertheless for some of them writing requires a lot of energy and the question comes up whether paper-writing is really necessary for their professional development. The question was why they do it anyway. The main questions for the research were: 1. What are the incentives that make teachers write about their work? 2. How do the incentives change during the process of writing? What are the differences between 'before' and 'after'? The theoretical basis of the research is the advanced model of motivation by Heckhausen and Rheinberg. Rheinberg differentiates between two groups of incentives: Incentives with a view to future situations (benefits) and incentives that are connected with the activity itself (pleasure). Rheinberg proposes a set of three steps for the investigation of incentives of a special activity: 1. Practise the activity for yourself to know what the people you ask are talking about. 2. Work out a preliminary catalogue of incentives based on experts meanings, statements in articles/books and advertising. 3. Try to give the catalogue a validation.

The first steps of investigation to create a catalogue of incentives were interviews, group discussions and meatings with teachers. At the CARN-conference in Malaga in 2003 some paticipants were asked what arguments they would use if they wanted to persuade teachers to write reflective papers. Out of all these statements a catalogue of incentives was enlisted and 115 persons filled in an online questionnaire up to the end. Some of these were also interviewed. The sample consisted of teachers for students from 10 to 18 who mainly thaught mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology.

The main outcome of the research was that teachers who ploughed their way through the writing process began to see reasons that made it worth for them to overcome their difficulties and it made sense for them to write reflective papers. Their most important argument was, ‘I write because I develop and learn something new’. They also stated that they see things more clearly after writing and that they write to get feedback. The findings of this research could help the teachers who have not yet gone through a writing process to accept the challenge of writing about their work.