Abstract:

The objective of this study was to investigate the motivations of Indonesian pre-service teachers to become teachers. Three research questions were posed to achieve this objective: 1. To what extent is the FIT-Choice Scale suitable for Indonesian pre-service teacher education?, 2. What are the motivations of Indonesian pre-service teachers for becoming teachers?, and 3. What is the relationship between motivations to become a teacher and perceptions of teaching related to affective professional commitment? The FIT-Choice Scale questionnaire was administered to 116 undergraduate and graduate students at Ahmad Dahlan University. With regard to the first research question, as a result of the factor analysis, regarding the motivation construct, five factors (social contributions, work with children and intrinsic value, job security and flexibility, social influence, and fallback career) were extracted. Concerning perceptions of teaching constructs, three factors (high demand and expert career, social status, satisfaction, and morality) were extracted. The structure obtained in this study was similar to those presented by other researchers. Regarding the second research question, this was analysed based on the descriptive statistics. The results showed that in the motivation constructs, 'Teaching allows me to provide a service to society' was 5.96 and 'Teaching will allow me to shape child/adolescent values' was 5.97. In contrast, 'As a teacher I will have lengthy holidays', 'I was not accepted into my first-choice career', and 'Teaching will be a secure job' all scored low, under 4 points. The strongest motivation was contributing to society and children’s development through teaching. In perceptions of teaching constructs, 'Do you think teaching is hard work? and 'Do you think teaching requires high levels of expert knowledge? ' exhibited the highest values of 5.6 and above. In contrast, 'Do you think teachers earn a good salary?' was the only one with a value below 3.5. Indonesian pre-service teachers have a perception of teaching as a difficult job that requires a high level of knowledge and skills, yet the salary is low. Concerning the third research question, the correlation between the motivation to become a teacher and beliefs about the teaching profession was analysed. The results showed that the correlation coefficients for 'work with children and intrinsic value' and ' satisfaction with choice and social status' were 0.69. Intrinsic motivation to work with children is strongly correlated with satisfaction with choice of being a teacher. This was only a survey of students at one university in Indonesia, and the results cannot be generalised to Indonesia as a whole. Further surveys should be conducted in other Indonesian universities.

Keywords:

Teacher education, Pre-service teacher, Fit-Choice Scale, Factor analysis, Indonesia.