Prospective Teachers’ Training Motivation and Its Influence on Training Success

Abstract

Training motivation is a growing research field in the context of teacher education. Several studies have used various motivation constructs to identify relevant facets for teachers’ training motivation. However, these studies mainly focus on whether teachers attend professional development and transfer the learnt contents. Studies examining the motivation within a training programme are lacking, which is especially true in the context of economic and business education. In this context, expectancy theory (Vroom 1964) has been proven to be a useful approach for investigating training motivation and predict training outcomes in the field of industrial and organisational context. Nevertheless, there are some problems with regard to existing measures, especially concerning their application to the context of teacher education and training. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to develop a measurement based on expectancy theory that can be used in the context of teacher training and education, and particularly to evaluate the designed training programme on professional error competence (PEC) for pre-service teachers. The aim was to have a more comprehensive view on training and training success rather than merely a cognitive one (learning outcomes).