An investigation of the reasons and motivation for pre-service English teachers choosing to specialize in English language teacher education

Due to the positive influence of motivation, it has a significant footprint in the literature. There have been motivational studies in many areas, and it has been aimed to improve the quality of work done by increasing the motivation of different employees. Education is also one of these areas, and there are many studies in the literature that research and aim to increase teacher and student motivation. Therefore, English education has been the research subject in the related area, and many studies have been conducted in both international and national contexts. Many studies in the literature study factors that influence the motivations of English teachers or how any situation or phenomenon affects the English teachers' motivation. However, according to the literature review, there is a severe deficiency of studies that relate the reasons and motivations of English teachers to choose this profession and investigate the relations between demographic data and teacher training relationship with these motivations and reasons. This study purposes to fill this gap in the literature and reveal what can be done to positively improve English teachers' motivation and attitudes towards the profession, starting with teacher education. The present study aims to explore the reasons and motivations for English teachers' profession; the researcher utilized a mixed-method research design intended to gain deep knowledge of the research subject using qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative research data was provided by the survey in the first quarter of the research, and qualitative data will be gathered by the semi-structured interview method. After the pilot application, the adapted questionnaire was applied based on the factor influencing teaching choice (FIT-Choice) scale. The adapted questionnaire was applied to the 132 students who enrolled in the English language teaching program and have volunteered, and the questionnaire provided some light on the participants' individual information, the factors and motivations for deciding on this profession. On the other hand, more in-depth data was attained with 12 volunteer teacher candidates from each grade who joined the questionnaire through the conducted semi-structured interviews in the 2021-2022 education year. The obtained quantitative data were analyzed with SPSS 26, and the qualitative data were examined using the thematic analysis method. Then, these data about causes and motivations were analyzed and classified, and demographic information and profiles of pre-service teachers were obtained. With the obtained demographic data, their relationship with the teacher motivation was revealed by T-test and one-way variant analysis (ANOVA). The survey results revealed that pre-service teacher candidates had high vocational motivations and factors influencing them. In addition, findings show no significant difference in teacher motivations in terms of gender, grade and income background. The semi-structured interview results also achieved several factors other than the questionnaire affecting English teacher candidates. The results obtained by this study were aimed at achieving the positive influences of the motivations and attitudes toward the professions of English teachers in a mixed-method research design. Using these factors to increase the motivations of the teachers' candidates, starting with the teacher training process, can be a significant step toward achieving highly motivated teachers. Therefore, research findings provide essential information for educators and program developers who have a role in English and other teacher training education to select proper teacher candidates, train, place them, retain them in school, raise and keep high their motivation, and eliminate the possible teacher shortage and burnout. Keywords: Teacher motivation, Teacher training, English teacher training, career motivation, Teaching career choice, English teaching career choice, Factors influencing teaching choice (FIT-Choice) scale