beliefs about english language proficiency: a quan-qual study in iranian efl context

Motivation for teaching as a career has long been of interest to investigators and policy-makers. the purpose of this study was two-fold: 1) to investigate the motives and perceptions about teaching as a career choice among preservice teachers within the self-determination theory (sdt) of motivation; 2) to develop and validate a new motivation scale for teaching within sdt model. the collected responses through interviews and an open-ended researcher-made questionnaire were initially analyzed via maxqda. relying on sdt as a frame of reference, the analysis yielded three main categories of motives along the intrinsic-extrinsic motivation through amotivation continuum. data interpretations at the initial phase revealed that intrinsic factors were the primary motive inspiring preservice teachers to choose teaching as a profession. the subcategories of extrinsic factors were the secondary motives influencing preference for being a teacher. comparisons of the participants by sex showed that females were more attracted by intrinsic than extrinsic factors as teaching motivations. the new scale for teaching motivation with 59 items went through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and yielded a three-factor solution comprising amotivation (6 items), extrinsic motivation with four subcomponents and 19 items) and intrinsic motivation (7 items) as the best fit for the scale measurement model. a total of 332 preservice teachers in three farhangian universities took the scale in the second phase for validation requirement of the scale.