Exploring Motivational Orientations of Prospective Language Teachers

Abstract

Pre-service teacher program has been a big issue in educational development and research worldwide. A dichotomy of their motivation under intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation is widely accepted but the motivational orientations under altruistic, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are also identified. This study was meant to identify what motivational orientations the Indonesian preservice language teachers had and whether their motivations changed while taking the training program. The criteria on reliability of internal consistency of the items were relatively high with their Cronbach’s Alpha .85. The results show that the participants had the three classifications of motivation of pre-service teachers and the results also revealed that the three sub-scales were significantly correlated. The empirical data in this study supported that the category of motivation of pre-service students under altruistic, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and the data also revealed that the participants became more motivated to be teachers after entering to the teacher training program. The data also suggests that the three types of motivation (altruistic, extrinsic and intrinsic orientation) are not antagonistic. The data also implies that motivational orientations in general are identified under the continuum of the extrinsic- intrinsic motivation and other categories, if any, may be grouped under the continuum.