An Examination of Motivation and Teacher Identity in Minority High School Students Enrolled in a Career and Technical Education Teacher Preparation Program

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This quantitative research describes the measures of motivating factors, through a social learning lens, that empower minority high school students in a CTE program to develop a teacher identity through time in clinical teaching practice. This quasi-experimental study found interactions between student motivation, teacher identity, and student achievement through an early clinical practice intervention used in SCHOOL A ECE 1. A comparison group, SCHOOL B ECE 2, was used to measure any effect of a community of practice framework on these factors. The present study also used a non-teacher education program, SCHOOL A BIO 1 to measure if motivation and teacher identity were content specific. The target population was 9th -12th-grade students enrolled in CTE programs. The independent variables in the current study included the vocational program enrollment and course academic levels (levels 1-4) in the CTE programs, to measure both motivation and identity development and pre and post achievement analysis. The dependent variables included survey responses to find effects on motivation, teacher identity. The study utilizes the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) survey instrument to measure motivational orientations. A modified version of a teacher identity survey was used to measure different dimensions of a teacher identity framework which includes recognition, interest, performance, and competence. An ex post facto design measures changes in student attendance and GPA to determine changes after time in clinical teaching practice between 9th and 12th grade. The results found no significant difference between the programs in motivation, but a significant difference was found in the development of teacher identity in the students of SCHOOL A ECE 1. A significant difference was also found between the levels (levels 1-4), with level 4 students in SCHOOL A ECE 1 having the highest mean for teacher identity.