Investigation of the relationship between personal and professional competences, life satisfaction and teaching motivation of Turkish teacher candidates

In this quantitative study, it was aimed to examine the relationship between Turkish language teacher candidates' personal and professional competencies, life satisfaction and teaching motivation and the relationship between these variables and some demographic variables. With these features, the research is a relational survey modeled study. The population of the research consists of the 4th grade students of the Turkish language teaching department of the faculties of education of state universities in the 2023-2024 Academic Year, and the sample consists of the students selected by the sampling method that can be easily found from the aforementioned universe. The 'Teaching Motivation Scale' was used to measure the teaching motivation of prospective Turkish teachers, the 'Personal-Professional Competencies Perception Scale for Prospective Teachers' was used to measure their perceptions of personal and professional competencies, and the 'Life Satisfaction' scale was used to measure their life satisfaction. The data were analysed with SPSS 24.0. In the study, kurtosis and skewness analyses were performed to determine whether the data showed normal distribution, and it was seen that the data had normal distribution and it was decided to apply parametric tests. Comparisons between groups were tested by t-test and ANOVA, and relationships were tested by Pearson correlation. Process analyses were also applied. The following results were reached in the research: A relatively low positive relationship was found between Turkish teacher candidates' perceptions of personal and professional competence and their motivation to teach. There was a slight positive relationship between their life satisfaction and their perceptions of personal and professional competence. There was a moderate positive relationship between life satisfaction and motivation to teach. It was determined that Turkish teacher candidates' perceptions of personal and professional competence were at the level of "quite sufficient". It was determined that their life satisfaction was at 'medium' level and their motivation to teach was at 'high' level. It was examined whether there was a significant difference between the variables of 'gender, general weighted grade point average, perceived personal income level, satisfaction with the department, reason for writing the department, prediction of the duration of finding a job' and the perceptions of personal and professional competence, motivation to teach and life satisfaction of prospective Turkish teachers. In addition, the mediating effect of teaching motivation on the effect of life satisfaction on personal and professional competences and the mediating effect of personal and professional competences on the effect of life satisfaction on teaching motivation were examined. The findings were discussed with the related researches in the literature, and in the last stage, various suggestions were made in line with the results obtained.