Background/Purpose Teachers' self-determined motivation toward teaching in physical education is important because of its influence on students' motivation, emotion, and achievements. The purpose of this study was to advance our understanding of changes in students' self-determined motivation across four cohorts in a physical education teacher preparation (PETE) program.
Method Participants included 296 PETE students (73 freshmen, 73 sophomores, 80 juniors, and 70 seniors) at a large, urban university in China. Situational Motivation scale (SIMS; Guay, Vallerand, & Blanchard, 2000) that reflect motivation for teaching physical education was used.
Analysis/Results MANOVA results suggested that there are no statistical differences among four cohorts in terms of intrinsic motivation (F=.392, p = .759) and identified regulation (F =2.523, p = .058). Results also suggested that there are significant differences among four cohorts with regard to students' reported introjected regulation (F=3.268, p =.022, η2 =.03), external regulation (F=11.028, p =.000, η2 =.11), and amotivation (F=11.016, p =.000, η2 =.11). The Post Hoc analysis further showed that seniors reported significantly higher introjected, external regulations, and amotivation than other cohorts.
Conclusions The findings indicate that senior students demonstrated highest extrinsic and amotivation (lack of motivation) toward teaching in physical education. Research has suggested that these extrinsic regulations and amotivation might be associated with maladaptive outcomes. Student teachers' low self-determined motivation or amotivation toward teaching might also have negative effect on their future students' motivation and achievement in physical education. Further investigations are needed to understand the cause of the change and find ways to enhance senior students' motivation.
See more of: Research Consortium