Abstract:

In 2015, the Norwegian government launched a national strategy to increase the recruitment to vocational education. Consequently, the universities received 350 new places on the postgraduate certificate in education programme (PGCE) reserved for students with a vocational background. Despite extensive research on this particular group of students, only a minority of research studies have examined their motivation for becoming teachers. The aim of this study is thus to investigate these students’ motivation to and become teachers. The article builds theoretically and methodologically on Roness and Smith’s (2009) and Roness’s (2011) studies on PGCE students with a general university background. This is a quantitative study of 112 PGCE students with vocational background at two universities in Norway.

The students responded to an online questionnaire designed to examine their motivation. The students’ motivation and attitudes towards the teaching profession were measured mainly through a five-point Likert scale to which they indicated their degree of approval from “do not agree” to “strongly agree”. When developing the questionnaire, we benefited from Roness and Smith’s (2009) thorough and multifaceted validation process. In addition, we conducted our own pilot study that involved 59 PGCE students from our institution. A principal component analysis revealed four underlying motivational components: internal, external, altruistic and subject-related factors.

Further descriptive analyses showed that the students’ motivation was more oriented towards the intrinsic, altruistic and subject-related motivators than the extrinsic factors in the profession. The findings indicate that in terms of motivation the vocational students align with students having a general university background. Gaining insight into the motivational profiles of prospective vocational teachers is pertinent for developing tailor-made study programmes for an important group of teachers. In addition, the findings are conducive for helping educational authorities develop their strategy for recruiting new vocational teacher students.

References:
[1] Roness, D. and K. Smith (2009). "Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) and student motivation." European Journal of Teacher Education 32(2): 111-134.
[2] Roness, D. (2011). "Still motivated? The motivation for teaching during the second year in the profession." Teaching and Teacher Education 27(3): 628-638.

Keywords:

Motivation, Pre-service teachers, Vocational teachers, Recruitement.