MOTIVATION TO BECOME AN EFL TEACHER AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Abstract

This paper deals with the motivation for choosing English teaching as a profession. The objective is to determine the impact of motivation on academic achievement by measuring the significance of gender. Teacher trainees (male n = 42; female n = 42; uncategorized n = 3) completed the Scale of Motivation for Choosing a Teaching Profession (SMVUP; Tomsik, 2019a) which measures eleven factors in three types of motivation – intrinsic, extrinsic, and altruistic. The scale is a validated instrument based on the globally used Fit-Choice Scale (Watt and Richardson, 2012) and adjusted to the European educational context. The quantitative analysis did not confirm any type of motivation as a significant predictor of academic achievement. However, gender was revealed as a significant motivational role in choosing TEFL as a profession. Male student teachers reached higher average scores in intrinsic and altruistic motives, compared to female teacher trainees who scored higher in extrinsic motives.