When purpose gives autonomy direction: Professional purpose and cognitively activating teaching across six education systems.

Instructional autonomy creates room for professional judgment, but it does not determine how that discretion will be used. Drawing on the ability-motivation-opportunity framework and relational job design, this study examined whether professional purpose gives instructional autonomy pedagogical direction. Teaching and Learning International Survey 2024 data from 12,455 lower-secondary teachers in Austria, Finland, Japan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore were analyzed using design-appropriate weighted models and a cross-country synthesis. Across the six systems, instructional autonomy was more strongly associated with cognitively activating teaching when teachers reported a stronger sense that their work contributes to students and society. The pattern was evident in five systems and was robust to a broader measure of vocational orientation. The findings position instructional autonomy as an opportunity rather than an automatic source of instructional quality: its value depends partly on the professional purposes that guide teachers' discretionary action.