Grounds for differences in motivation among Finnish student teachers and novice primary school teachers

Päivi Virtanen and Anu Laine
University of Helsinki, Finland

We used mixed methods to explore differences between Finnish certified novice teachers and student teachers who want to work as teachers, versus those who intend to leave the teaching career, and the reasons behind trans-professional changes. The student register data (N=237), survey (59 responses) and interviews (n=19) revealed that 72% of graduate primary school teachers were satisfied with their profession and would choose the career again, 47% had thought about leaving the profession, and 3% of the survey respondents were not working in teaching professions. Satisfaction with teaching career was positively related to teacher efficacy, satisfaction with teacher education and ability to control a class, and negatively with job stress, and academic knowledge test score in the teacher education entrance examination. Entrance examination success did not guarantee graduation and the academically strongest students were not the most satisfied with the teaching profession. In addition, we found statistically significant differences between the three identified teacher motivation groups: novice teachers with high teacher motivation scored significantly higher in job satisfaction, satisfaction with teacher education, and teacher efficacy, than teachers with mediocre or low motivation. Analysis of interviews revealed that profession-based and person-based reasons, and unrealistic ideas of the profession cause retention challenges in a teaching career.
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Authors: Dr Päivi Virtanen (corresponding author) is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Email: paivi.s.virtanen@helsinki.fi ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8965-1955 Dr Anu Laine is vice-dean and adjunct professor in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Email: anu.laine@helsinki.fi ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3881-8134 Please cite as: Virtanen, P. & Laine, A. (2021). Grounds for differences in motivation among Finnish student teachers and novice primary school teachers. Issues in Educational Research, 31(1), 291-308. http://www.iier.org.au/iier31/virtanen.pdf