Preservice Teachers' Beginning Thoughts About Motivation

• In Event: 14.043 - Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: 14.043-3 - Beliefs and Contexts of Preservice Teachers' Identities

Abstract

Motivation is an important topic for teachers and pre-service teachers, yet pre-service teachers’ thinking about motivation remains under-explored. In this study, pre-service teachers completed a written questionnaire with open-ended items about motivation: how they define motivation and plan to teach to support motivation, what they consider to be obstacles to and evidence of motivation, and how they evaluate and rank three domains of motivation (expectancy, value, and belonging). Pre-service teachers overwhelmingly defined motivation in terms of expectancy but also supported expectancy, value, and belonging in other responses. Their wide-ranging responses suggest the value of discussing motivation specifically in teacher education and of providing pre-service teachers a framework for conceptualizing motivation.

Author

• Amanda Wall, Georgia Southern University