Are Pre-service Teachers Prepared to Teach? Investigating their Locus of Control, Self-efficacy and Attitude towards the Teaching Profession and Teaching Subjects
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Date
2020
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Papers in Education and Development
Abstract
The study examined pre-service teachers’ preparedness to teach using
a sample of final-year students (n=454) in a Tanzanian teacher
education university. The study measured pre-service teachers’
preparedness to teach using four dimensions—internal locus of control,
self-efficacy, attitude towards the teaching profession and attitude
towards teaching subjects. With exceptions of relatively low teachers’
attitude towards the teaching profession, results indicated that student
teachers have higher levels of self-efficacy, positive internal locus of
control and positive attitude towards teaching subjects. Also, a
significant difference (p ˂ 0.05) was found between teaching subjects
on the dimension of locus of control with social science majors having
higher locus of control than science and mathematics majors. Future
employment intentions had significant impacts (p ˂ 0.05) on student
teachers’ attitude towards teaching with those intending to work in non-teaching sector having significantly lower attitude. Regression results
indicated that working with students and pre-service teachers’
persistence were strong predictors of overall pre-service teachers’
attitude towards teaching (R² = 0.319). Results further revealed that
40.2 % of pre-service teachers regret that they chose the teaching
profession and 56.2% are not intending to work as teachers after
graduation.
Description
Keywords
attitude towards teaching profession, self-efficacy of pedagogical content knowledge, student-teachers, teaching profession
Citation
APA 6th Edition