Pre-service EFL teachers’ motivational beliefs about instructional use of technology: development and validation of a scale

Abstract

This article presents the development and validation of the Pre-Service EFL Teachers’ Motivational Beliefs about Instructional Use of Technology scale (PTMB-EFL) using a randomly split sample. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a 23-item six-factor structure of the PTMB-EFL generated from exploratory factor analysis. Significant correlations between the PTMB-EFL factors and teachers’ perceived actual classroom technology use practices supported the concurrent validity of the PTMB-EFL. A second-order confirmatory factor analysis further provided empirical evidence to consider motivational beliefs about instructional use of technology as a unitary construct with six correlated but distinct motivational belief factors. In addition, unlike previous technology acceptance studies, this study revealed that among the six types of motivational beliefs, growth mindset was the strongest predictor of perceived actual classroom technology use practices. The PTMB-EFL can be used as an evaluation tool to appraise pre-service EFL or ESL teacher technology-based English teaching experience during their practicum, and as a research tool to investigate more associations between instructional use of technology and other contextual and teacher factors.

Keywords:

• Motivational beliefs
• instructional use of technology
• foreign language teaching
• pre-service teachers

Acknowledgement

This study was supported by the Macao SAR Government Higher Education Fund under Grant HSS-UMAC-2020-12. We have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zhengdong Gan

Zhengdong Gan is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Macau. His research interests include second language acquisition, classroom-based assessment, computer-assisted language learning, and second language teacher education. He has published many articles in international journals such as Modern Language Journal, TESOL Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, Psychology in the Schools, Journal of Education for Teaching, ELT Journal, RELC Journal, Linguistics and Education, and Asia Pacific Education Researcher etc.

Christopher Fulton

Christopher Fulton is an e-learning technology officer at the Centre for Teaching and Learning Enhancement at the University of Macau. He obtained his Ph.D. in educational technology in 2017. His research areas focus on teachers’ beliefs towards mobile technology and teacher professional development.

Siying Li

Siying Li is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Language and Literature at Chongqing University of Education, Chongqing, China. Her research areas focus on second language acquisition and computer-assisted language learning.