Choosing teaching as a profession: Validation Of an SMVUP-4-S assessment tool

Abstract

The aim of the present research was to validate the Scale of motivation for choosing teaching profession (SMVUP-4-S), and to explore its basic psychometric properties on a sample of Slovak teacher trainee students. SMVUP-4-S scale was completed by 1235 respondents with a mean age of 20.1 years. SMVUP- 4-S scale consists of 44 items arranged into 11 subscales, which are arranged into three main categories of motivation: intrinsic, extrinsic and altruistic. A latent structure of SMVUP model that consists of two four-factor (intrinsic and extrinsic motivation) and a one three-factor model (altruistic motivation) was tested. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was calculated using the Maximum Likelihood estimation. To evaluate Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) χ2-test, CFI, RMSEA, SRMR, AIC, BIC and TLI indicators were used. SMVUP-4-S scale showed an acceptable internal consistency. Using EFA two four-factor and one three-factor model were extracted. CFA indicated that four-factor models had a good fit to the empirical data (Intrinsic motivation χ2/df = 4.925, Extrinsic motivation χ2/df = 4.781). Modifying indexes have shown that several items have correlated with residual variances which leads to low fit to the empirical data in three-factor-model. After the implementation of covariants between items this model has also shown a good fit to the empirical data (Altruistic motivation χ2/df = 4.715).