Education paper by Bús, Enikõ
Hungarian Prospective Teacher's Career and Mastery Motivation
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
Teacher shortage as a problematic phenomenon has appeared all over the world during recent years; therefore international studies have turned towards mapping prospective teachers' career and mastery motivation. These are such multifactorial systems whose certain elements cannot be directly influenced by researchers – for example, teachers' salary or social esteem – while others, like students' professional self-perception, can be changed through teacher training. The consideration of prospective teachers' mastery and career motivation is critical in the formation and shaping of teacher preparation programs because by failing to do so we risk losing prospects' motivation and interest, which can lead to attrition.
The presentation introduces the first large-scale assessment (N=454) conducted in Hungary that investigated first-year prospective teachers' career and mastery motivation. All students took a mandatory online mastery motivation (24 items) and a career choice questionnaire (28 items). Students who are satisfied with their career choice have shown a higher level of task persistence. The better self-perception students have, the higher level of mastery motivation is shown. Those students feel less task-related pleasure, who think of teaching as a fallback career. According to the results, we can suppose that one in five students may leave the teaching studies or profession at some point. In the case of early intervention (e.g., enhancing their professional self-perception through including research studies and active learning forms in the teacher training curricula), we can reduce the number of attrition.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Enikõ Bús is an educational researcher focusing on teacher education and innovative instructional methods (inductive learning). She graduated first as Hungarian Language Teacher then as Educational Researcher at the University of Szeged. Following that, she continued her educational researches and received a summa cum laude Ph.D. in 2018 as a Doctor of Educational Sciences. Currently, she is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Cleveland State University, teaching Hungarian language to diverse ages.