Student teachers’ intrinsic motivation during a short-term teacher training course abroad

ABSTRACT

While research data concerning study abroad experiences of tertiary level students are easily accessible, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of international programmes in pre-service foreign language (FL) teacher education. The present study involved student teachers of English from three countries and aimed to explore their intrinsic motivation to participate in a short-term teacher-training course in Germany based on cooperative and interdisciplinary teaching approaches. It was also verified whether the results were determined by the participants’ country of origin. The data for the investigation were collected by means of a questionnaire developed on the basis of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory and focused on six subscales related to intrinsic motivation: interest/enjoyment, perceived competence, value/usefulness, effort/importance, felt pressure/tension and perceived choice during task-based activities of the workshop. The quantitative data were supplemented with the participants’ written comments, which were later content analysed with regard to the abovementioned subscales. The results suggest that irrespective of the nationality, all participants reported relatively high levels of intrinsic motivation to participate in the programme. Additionally, the findings serve as a basis for a number of practical recommendations for planning and management of future mobility programmes addressed to student teachers of FLs.

KEYWORDS:

• Intrinsic motivation
• study abroad
• FL student teachers
• learning through the arts
• initial teacher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.