This research explores student teachers’ motivation to join teacher education and its relation to
their career intention to join the teaching profession. The qualitative study was conducted in the
English department of private and state teacher education in Indonesia. A total of 14 student
teachers (20-23 years old) took part in the interview. The findings show that most student teachers
chose Initial Teacher Education (ITE) because of external motivation factors such as the alternative
option of not being accepted at their desired faculty or following parents’ suggestions. Besides that,
considering the internal motivation factor, one of the common reasons students chose English
teacher education was the interest in English, which was also viewed as transferrable skills that
could be useful to many other job possibilities. The findings show that only a few of the participants
who prioritised their career to become teachers. The findings might contest the generalisation that
often associates student teachers’ motivation to join teacher education to become teachers. Even
though the assumption is valid to some extent, the nuances in the student teachers’ motivation
to choose teacher education might need to be considered, especially in the context when joining
teacher education is relatively easy because there is no high-stake test involved and teaching might
be perceived as an unattractive career intention. The findings also indicate that as motivation is fluid,
abstract, and hard to measure, teacher education overlooks this element in the admission process.
However, forgetting the importance of student teachers’ motivation in teacher education could lead
to a more severe problem in the quality of graduates and education in the long run.
Keyword(s) : student teachers
Psychological Mechanisms of Student Teachers’ Professional Reliability Training
Society demands higher education teachers with new professional skills. Satisfying this demand
requires socio-cultural and scientific research to discover ways to develop such qualities in student
teachers. This article was written as part of the author’s doctoral dissertation research: Student
teachers’ professional reliability formation. The purpose of this study was to identify the psychological
mechanisms of student teachers’ professional reliability training.
Methodology. The following research methods were used: psychological testing, expert evaluation and
pedagogical experiment. Additional methods included: Method of Identity Diagnostics (Schneider,
2007), Method of Reflexivity Diagnostics (Karpov, 2003), Diagnostic Map of Professional Reliability
of Student teachers (Osadchuk, 2007). The study carried out at Omsk State Pedagogical University
(Russia) involved 75 students and 4 teachers. The educational experiment was carried out in the
natural conditions that were familiar to students, and the natural course of the educational process
was not interrupted.
Novelty. The author developed and pilot-tested a range of new educational tools to actualize the
psychological mechanisms to train professional reliability of student teachers. These tools included
different types of unsupervised activities, motivation training, teaching methods, and pedagogical
support strategies.
Results. The article presents experimental data showing the correlation between indicators of
professional reliability, identity, and reflexivity of student teachers. It contains a diagnostic map of
professional reliability for student teachers developed by the author, which can serve as one of the
tools for monitoring the education quality in teacher training courses. The findings can be used in
educational program development, organizational and methodological documentation, as well as
educational and extra-curricular activities related to higher teaching education goals and syllabi.