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Chapter 6 - Motivations That Affect Professional Knowledge in Germany and Austria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2017

By
Johannes König  and
Martin Rothland
Edited by
Helen M. G. Watt ,
Paul W. Richardson  and
Kari Smith
Helen M. G. Watt
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Paul W. Richardson
Affiliation:
Monash University, Victoria
Kari Smith
Affiliation:
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim
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Summary

Abstract

Career choice motivation of prospective teachers is supposed to be a significant factor in the admission to and progression in a teacher education program. When asking about the effects of teaching motivations for student teachers who just entered initial teacher education, various indicators of training success can be examined, such as satisfaction with training, self-evaluation of professional development, or teacher education grades. However, there is a lack of empirical studies that link teaching motivations with student teachers’ acquisition of professional knowledge. Exceptions are analyses conducted by König and Rothland (2012) and König and Herzmann (2011), utilising longitudinal datasets of student teachers. They provide evidence that future teachers’ acquisition of general pedagogical knowledge (GPK) as assessed by the TEDS-M test (König et al., 2011) at two timepoints is affected by teaching motivations measured by the FIT-Choice scale (Watt & Richardson, 2007). For example, “job security motivation” showed a positive effect on the learning gain between two occasions of measurement within one academic year during initial teacher education (König & Rothland, 2012). Although such findings enrich the discussion about the meaning and the predictive validity of teaching motivations for future teachers just entering initial teacher education, at least three major questions arise that require further research.

First, findings reported by König and Rothland (2012) and König and Herzmann (2011) are difficult to generalise, since only a single teacher education institution was included in each of these studies. Second, presumably the investigation of student teachers’ acquisition of pedagogical knowledge as a motivational outcome needs more complex modelling that would account for more variables (e.g., teaching motivations at two timepoints). Thirdly, in a time of globalisation, when the discourse on teacher education and the definition of what preservice teachers have to know and be able to do are no longer limited to institutional, regional, or national boundaries, it seems essential to clarify those questions from a comparative perspective.

In our chapter, we will analyse how teaching motivations may affect general pedagogical knowledge (GPK), using data from future teachers in Germany and Austria from the longitudinal study EMW (Change of Teaching Motivations and Acquisition of Pedagogical Knowledge during Initial Teacher Education). Motivations for choosing teaching were measured by the FIT-Choice scale (Watt & Richardson, 2007) and GPK by a paper-and-pencil test derived from TEDS-M (König et al., 2011) at two timepoints.

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Global Perspectives on Teacher Motivation , pp. 126 - 161
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2017

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