The Motivational Outcomes of Psychological Need Support among Pre-Service Teachers: Multicultural and Self-determination Theory Perspectives

Haya Kaplan,Nir Madjar

doi:10.3389/feduc.2017.00042

Abstract

The study employed a Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework to explore pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their professional training in relation to motivational outcomes. We hypothesized that students’ perceptions of basic psychological need support will be positively associated with their sense of relatedness, competence, and autonomous motivation, and negatively associated with controlled motivation. Sense of relatedness, competence, and autonomous motivation were hypothesized to be positively associated with personal accomplishment, engagement, and self-exploration, and negatively associated with emotional exhaustion. The study was conducted within a multicultural context, which enabled exploration of the hypotheses among students from two different cultural backgrounds. Based on the universality of SDT we expected that the general models would be similar for both cultures, although some mean-level and correlational paths may be different. The sample (N = 308; mean age 23.4) consisted of Muslim-Arab Bedouin (55.3%) and Jewish (44.7%) pre-service teachers enrolled in the same teachers’ college in Israel. The participants completed self-report surveys assessing their sense of basic psychological need support, autonomous and controlled motivation, self-accomplishment, engagement, self-exploration, and emotional exhaustion. Multiple-group structural equation modeling revealed that need support contributed positively to autonomous motivation, sense of relatedness, and sense of competence in both cultures. Autonomous motivation contributed positively to sense of self-accomplishment, engagement, and self-exploration. Competence in turn was positively related to engagement and negatively related to emotional exhaustion, and relatedness was associated with engagement only among the Bedouin students, and with self-accomplishment only among the Jewish students. These results indicate that sense of need support is highly important regardless of cultural background, while sense of relatedness may be related to different outcomes across cultures. The findings demonstrate the utility of Self-Determination Theory within the context of multicultural teacher training and support the universality of the theoretical framework.

Highlights

For several decades, policymakers and educators around the world have been engaging with issues such as the professional status of teachers, quality of teaching, teacher dropout, and shortage of teachers (Gao and Trent, 2009; Struyven et al, 2013; Weissblei, 2013)
This study focuses on pre-service teachers’ motivation
This study focuses on an issue that is important to policymakers in the field of teacher education, namely how to train quality teachers with autonomous motivation for teaching

Summary

Introduction

Policymakers and educators around the world have been engaging with issues such as the professional status of teachers, quality of teaching, teacher dropout, and shortage of teachers (Gao and Trent, 2009; Struyven et al, 2013; Weissblei, 2013). Some of the problems can be solved at policymaker level Issues such as teacher dropout or teaching quality can be discussed from a different perspective, namely the moti vational perspective (Watt and Richardson, 2007). Previous studies indicate that pre-service teachers report multiple reasons for choosing teaching (e.g., Watt and Richardson, 2007; Kaplan and Madjar, 2013). Some studies indicate that pre-service teachers’ initial motivation to teach at the beginning of their studies is associated with various outcomes during their early teaching career, such as dropout rates (Jungert et al, 2014) or their intentions to stay in the teaching profession (Watt and Richardson, 2007)

Results

Discussion

Conclusion