Pre-Service EFL Teachers’ Motivation to Teach in Turkish Universities

This study aimed to reveal 4th-year pre-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' motivation to teach at Turkish public universities.A mixed-method research design was adopted with the aim of exploring pre-service EFL teachers' level of motivation, their perceptions of their level of motivation as well as their efforts to improve their motivation level.The study also aimed to find out whether the motivation to teach differed according to the geographical region.The Motivation to Teach Scale (Kauffman et al., 2011) and a semi-structured interview form were adopted as data collection tools in this mixed-method research.Stratified sampling method was utilized to determine the participants of the study.374 pre-service EFL teachers from seventeen universities in seven geographical regions of Trkiye participated in the study.Descriptive statistics, paired samples t test, the Kruskal-Wallis test and thematic analysis were used for the analysis of the data.The findings of the study indicated that pre-service teachers were considerably motivated and that motivation levels did not vary according to geographical regions.The study also revealed pre-service EFL teachers' perceptions and efforts regarding their motivation to teach.