Abstract

• The aim of this study is to investigate the prospective teachers’ perceptions on their motivational factors influencing the choice of teaching as a career in two Education Colleges in Mandalay Region. The questionnaire survey was developed on the basis of Self-Concept Theory, the Expectancy-Value Theory, the Self-Determination Theory, Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory and Motivational Factors Influencing Teaching Scale developed by Richardson and Watt (2014). It included 48 items which had three subscales; intrinsic motivation, altruistic motivation and extrinsic motivation. A five-point Likert scale was used in this study. Although a total of 300 prospective teachers from two Education Colleges in Mandalay Region were selected as target population of the study, 295 prospective teachers participated in the study. After collecting the data, descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, one way ANOVA, Post Hoc multiple comparison tests were calculated to analyze the data. The findings showed that the prospective teachers’ perceptions on altruistic and intrinsic motivational factors influencing the career choice of teaching were higher than those perceptions on extrinsic motivational factors. The results of this study highlighted that prospective teachers had more intrinsic and altruistic motivation than extrinsic motivation in choosing teaching as a career. It was found that there was no significant difference in perceptions of prospective teachers according to their gender and specialization but significant differences were found in perceptions of prospective teachers according to their grade level and age. Information gained by the responses of two open-ended questions was complementary to the quantitative findings.