How emotions are related to determinants of career choice among teachers: A FIT perspective

Abstract

Statistics have shown that teachers tended to quit their profession (Ingersoll, 2001; Stokking et al., 2003), especially during the first years of professional experience. In this project, we are interested in investigating what makes people want to become a teacher. Using a FIT perspective, we asked pre-service teachers to complete a self-reported questionnaire investigating students’ motivation to become a teacher as well as the emotions they felt when they were teaching. Partial correlations reveal that motivations are related to each others: opportunity is negatively related with intrinsic value and social motivations, whereas intrinsic value is positively related with social but not with personal motivations. Moreover, joy is positively related with intrinsic value and social motivation, whereas anger and anxiety are negatively related with these motivations. In addition, anger and anxiety are positively related with personal motivation and opportunity. Finally, linear regression analyses suggest that social motivation and intrinsic value positively predict joy, whereas negative emotions (anger and anxiety) were positively predicted by opportunity but negatively by intrinsic value.