Currently, the education system is undergoing reforms and changes which are focused on the implementation of an improved student-centred learning curriculum, and students’ performance assessment systems. Within the last few years, the government of Kazakhstan initiated nationwide reforms to improve school education to meet the requirements of international education standards (Yakavets, 2014). Practices of well-developed countries like Finland, Singapore, Canada, the UK and the USA are being implemented to realize reforms (Yakavets, 2014). However, while considering the changes in the education system in terms of learning programs, the work conditions of teachers seem to remain the same. One of the main factors affecting teachers’ motivation level and turnover is endless government reforms (Müller et al., 2009). Therefore, while being burdened with additional pressure caused by a continuum of change, the question rises what keeps teachers motivated. This study aimed at exploring school culture, specifically teacher motivation in order to maintain their interest in professional and organizational development. Therefore, the following research questions were developed:

• What factors keep teachers motivated to teach?
• What are teachers’ attitudes towards the motivational environment at their school?

The study of the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of teachers serves as the conceptual framework for the current research. Ryan and Deci (2000) defined intrinsic motivation as doing something for its own sake because it brings joy and a sense of achievement while extrinsic motivation refers to doing an activity that is driven by external rewards such as salary, praise or social recognition. Based on the discussion of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the study focuses on the following elements of teacher motivation: a) the degree of importance of certain motivational factors in the context of a gifted school in Kazakhstan; b) current motivational environment at school.

This study employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods design which involves both collecting quantitative data and qualitative data. This allowed the exploration of the research question in-depth. According to Creswell (2014), initially, mixed methods were valuable due to the opinion that quantitative or qualitative methods alone were not strong enough or implausible; however, the application of both qualitative and quantitative approach help to eliminate these weaknesses.To collect quantitative data purposeful sampling was used to select participants for the study. The criteria for selection of participants were: teachers of different departments with more than three years of teaching experience. Overall, about 80 of teachers with more than three years of teaching experience were to have taken the survey, however, 77 responses were returned (more than 60 % of the teachers at the school). The survey was used as the quantitative data collection instrument in this study. According to Handy and Ross (2005), there are three reasons to consider a survey as an effective tool to collect data. Firstly, it helps to eliminate the pressure that might occur during face to face interviews. Secondly, it allows for the collection of opinions from a wide range of participants, and lastly, it reduces the bias of interviewers during verbal interviewing (Handy & Ross, 2005). Likert scale survey questions were used to identify teachers’ attitudes towards the motivational environment in school as well job satisfaction level of teachers. The collected data was exported to an excel document to create a data file for SPSS statistical analysis. IBM SPSS Statistics Data Editor (Version 23; 2015) software was used to analyze collected data which allowed to identify the highest and lowest-rated items in the survey, descriptive statistics procedure was applied to compute frequencies. The qualitative data collection tool chosen for the study was face to face interviews, which was open-ended and semi-structured and include 10-15 questions. The interviews lasted 15-25 minutes. The interview transcripts were analyzed using manual coding. The ‘grounded theory' principles were followed for data analysis and the concepts were developed from actual data (as cited in Givon & Court, 2010). The data analysis was driven by the inductive approach since themes that were mentioned several times were selected to be coded, and a set of concepts that were clearly related to the research question which identified core motives along with other categories having a relationship to that main category were developed

The findings of the study revealed that extrinsic factors were considered to have more significance in affecting teachers’ motivation. However, intrinsic aspects of work such as being able to help students succeed were also found one of the major reasons that help teachers keep motivated to work at school. As it was mentioned in the study by Müller et al. (2009) the process of teaching students itself is one of the main stimuli motivating teachers.Thus, the present study revealed that teachers identify that working with students and helping them progress was a major intrinsic motivational factor while salary, bonus payments and facilities are considered as major extrinsic motivational factors. It was also discovered that although some teachers feel that being overloaded with additional duties, paperwork and meetings hinders motivation, generally, most of the teachers were satisfied with the motivational environment at the research site and feel that it is sustained well.

Creswell, J. W.(2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, California. Sage publications. Handy, J., & Ross, K. (2005). Using written accounts in qualitative research. South Pacific Journal of Psychology, 16, 40-47. Müller, K., Alliata, R., & Benninghoff, F. (2009). Attracting and retaining teachers: A question of motivation. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 37(5), 574-599. doi:10.1177/1741143209339651 Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), 54-67. Yakavets, N. (2014). Educational reform in Kazakhstan: The first decade of independence in Kazakhstan. In D. Bridges (Ed.), Educational Reform and Internationalisation: The Case of School Reform in Kazakhstan (pp. 1–27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press