Abstract:

Preservice teachers’ beliefs and perceptions are critical in shaping their future teaching pedagogy. A research design, therefore, that helps elicit beliefs and probe the motivations of preservice teachers’ behaviours can give researchers great insight into the next generation of teachers. Accordingly, the framework used in a recent study to achieve this outcome was the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). This paper describes a study in which the TPB was used to elicit beliefs, seek motivations, and describe important people that may have had an impact on participants’ behaviours. Although this study is not the first to have used the TPB to elicit beliefs, it is believed to be the first time the TPB has been used in this manner with preservice teachers. The author highlights perceived strengths, weaknesses and opportunities in relation to the methodology of using the TPB to elicit beliefs in preservice teachers. Using this approach, it was possible to highlight why preservice teachers carried out a particular behaviour and the beliefs and perceptions underpinning those decisions.

Keywords:

Theory of Planned Behaviour, methodology, educational research