Pre-service Teachers’ Motivation, Sense of Teaching Efficacy, and Expectation of Reality Shock

Source: Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 42, Issue 1, 2014, pages 67-81

This study explored how pre-service teachers’ motivation and their sense of teaching efficacy influence their expectation about reality shock during the first year of professional teaching.

The participants were 533 pre-service teachers at a state university in the US Midwest.

The results revealed that the pre-service teachers’ expectation of reality shock was negatively related to teacher efficacy and intrinsic motivation while it was positively related to introjected and external motivation.
Furthermore, it was found that pre-service teachers’ sense of efficacy and introjected motivation were strong predictors of their expectation of reality shock, when gender difference was controlled for.

There was an interaction effect between intrinsic motivation and teachers’ sense of efficacy in predicting the reality shock expectation.