Participation, motivation, and emotional states in the course of VET teacher training: results of an 18-months longitudinal study

Abstract

Background Our study aims to investigate inter- and intraindividual effects of trainee teachers’ perceived opportunities of participation in vocational education and training teacher training on their emotional states. Additionally, it is examined whether the subjective reason for action as in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation affects the relationship between perceived participation and emotional states. In this respect, control-value theory constitutes the guiding conceptual framework in our study. Methods On the basis of a longitudinal design with a total of 75 trainee teachers in Germany and a maximum of 58 survey time points during 18-months of teacher training (in total 1790 individual measurements), we traced the perception of participatory opportunities, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as well as weekly emotional states. Multilevel modeling allowed us to examine both between- as well as within-person effects of perceived participation. Results The results of our multilevel models indicate, among other findings, statistically significant within- and between-person effects of perceived participation opportunities on enjoyment, hope, pride, as well as anger, anxiety, shame, and hopelessness. Furthermore, the attributed subjective reason for action, i.e., the intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, moderates the relationship between perceived opportunities to participate and emotional states. Discussion The findings, which are consistent across different emotions of the same valence and for the two different types of motivation, indicate that those trainee teachers who report low values for intrinsic motivation (or high values for extrinsic motivation) in a given week react more responsively to changes with regard to opportunities for participatory influence.