COMMON SOURCES FOR TEACHING CHOICE: KEY MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS AND BELIEFS ABOUT TEACHING
COMMON SOURCES FOR TEACHING CHOICE: KEY MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS AND BELIEFS ABOUT TEACHING

Summary/Abstract: The present study investigated future teachers’ motivation for teaching, their beliefs about teaching as a career and beliefs about teaching and learning in general. Participants in this study were undergraduate students, following a traditional teacher education program in a large research university in the United States. This mixed-methods study used quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (interviews) data, collected over one academic year. This study was conducted in two phases: in the first phase of the study participants completed a survey about their motivations (reasons) for teaching and their beliefs about teaching, followed by in-depth interviews (the second phase), with a selected number of participants. Overall, quantitative results show that six factors related to motivation for teaching were identified through a factor analysis, and further additional 5 factors related to their beliefs about teaching were identified. Correlational analysis showed a strong relationship between prospective teachers’ motivations for teaching and their teaching beliefs. Further, the qualitative data from interviews revealed more in-depth the connection between motivations and beliefs of prospective teachers. Findings from this study are discussed further in relationship with teacher education and implication for research and practice in this field.

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