The Relationship between Learning Motivation and Demographic, Socio-Emotional Aspects among Arab Minority Preservice Teachers in Israel

Dallasheh Waleed, Zubeidat Ihab

doi:10.17762/pae.v58i2.1549

Abstract

Learning motivation means driving influences from internal (intrinsic) or external (extrinsic) forces that give learners power to learn effectively, implicating processes of learning engagement. This study examines the differences in learning motivation levels among preservice teachers in the Arab minority in Israel according to demographic and socio-emotional aspects, and the relationships between level of learning motivation and various socio-emotional characteristics. 543 Arab minority students of education (with different majors) were chosen by means of random cluster sampling, and were asked to fill out questionnaires. The findings indicated significant differences in the level of the students' learning motivation for only two demographic variables: study program and specialization. Significant negative relationships were found between learning motivation and depression and social anxiety, and significant positive relationships were found between learning motivation and perceived social and family support and self-esteem. Multiple regression results revealed that the most significant factors that explained the variance of learning motivation among Arab minority preservice teachers were perceived social and family support (13.5%), followed by social anxiety (1.9%), and self-esteem (1.1%). These findings contribute to the understanding of the nature of the relationship between learning motivation and other demographic and socio-emotional aspects of preservice teachers from Israeli Arab society.

Highlights

Positive socio-emotional and educational-learning experiences help students to make progress throughout their years as students, and affect their mental-social adaptation in an academic atmosphere
This hypothesis raised the following questions: 1.Would we find differences in the levels of learning motivation among Arab minority students of education according to demographic characteristics? 2.What is the relationship between socioemotional characteristics and the learning motivation of Arab minority students of education? The literature review focuses first on describing the variable that is at the heart of this study – learning motivation, followed by a review of two aspects that could, according to the literature, be related to education students' motivation; namely, demographic socio-emotional characteristics
We first hypothesized that differences would be found in the learning motivation of education students in an Arab minority teaching college according to various demographic aspects: gender, age, employment, marital status, year of studies, income, religious-ethnic background, study program, and specialization

Summary

Introduction

Positive socio-emotional and educational-learning experiences help students to make progress throughout their years as students, and affect their mental-social adaptation in an academic atmosphere. In this context, learning motivation is an important element. The main hypothesis of the current research was that relationships would be found between demographic-personal and socio-emotional aspects and learning motivation among preservice teachers (most of them women) in the Arab minority in Israel, and that the variance of learning motivation could be explained by various demographic and socio-emotional characteristics. This hypothesis raised the following questions: 1.Would we find differences in the levels of learning motivation among Arab minority students of education according to demographic characteristics? 2.What is the relationship between socioemotional characteristics and the learning motivation of Arab minority students of education? The literature review focuses first on describing the variable that is at the heart of this study – learning motivation, followed by a review of two aspects that could, according to the literature, be related to education students' motivation; namely, demographic socio-emotional characteristics

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion