Motivation to teach as a predictor of resilience and appreciation: An examination in terms of the self-determination theory

Abstract

The aim with this research was to investigate the correlation between the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of teacher candidates regarding their desire to teach, and the variables of resilience and appreciation. In order to establish this correlation, we used the resilience scale, originally developed by Wagnild and Young in 1993 and adapted to the Turkish context by Terzi in 2006. Additionally, the motivation-to-teach scale, developed by Kauffman, Yilmaz Soylu and Duke in 2011 and adapted to the Turkish context by Güzel Candan and Evin Gencel in 2015, as well as the gratitude, resentment and appreciation test-revised short (GRAT-RS), developed by Thomas and Watkins in 2003 and adapted to the Turkish context by Oğuz Duran in 2017, were employed. The participants in this study comprised 328 fourth-year teacher candidates enrolled in undergraduate programmes in the Faculty of Education at the Ege University during the 2019–2020 academic year. According to the findings, the motivation to teach demonstrates predictive qualities for both resilience and appreciation. The teacher candidates with high motivation to teach, that is, the teacher candidates who studied at a faculty of education by choice, showed more positive emotions towards their profession (Ayık & Ataş, 2014). This research shows that the level of autonomy is effective over positive emotions. If we aim to have better education and teachers who inspire students with positive energy, it may be easier to achieve this with teachers who have a higher level of autonomy.