ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Drivers of Teacher Commitment to Place-Based Education: Unveiling Motivational Pathways through a Cognitive-Affective-Behavioral Lens
Provisionally accepted
- College of Teacher Education, Northwest Minzu University, China, Lanzhou, China
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Despite the growing emphasis on place-based education in K-12 settings, research into the motivational mechanisms that drive teachers' implementation of these pedagogies remains scarce. This study aims to develop and validate a conceptual model of K-12 teachers' motivation for place-based education, based on the Cognitive-Affective-Behavioral framework. Data were collected from 255 K-12 teachers across 99 schools and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that teachers' place cognition significantly enhances their place identity (β = 0.753, p < 0.001) and place emotions (β = 0.446, p < 0.001), which in turn positively influence their willingness to implement place-based education (β = 0.749, p < 0.001). Notably, place identity alone does not have a direct significant effect on implementation willingness. These findings confirm the cognitive-affective pathway in education and enhance motivation theory by identifying key motivational factors in place-based education. The study recommends that educational policymakers incorporate local cultural content into teacher training and organize immersive experiences to strengthen teachers' place cognition and emotional engagement.
Keywords: Cognitive-Affective-Behavioral, Place cognition, Place emotion, place identity, place-based education
Received: 06 Jan 2026; Accepted: 11 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Li and Zhu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wanxia Zhu
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