“Motivated To Teach, but Stressed Out by Teacher Education”: A Content Analysis of Self-Reported Sources of Stress and Motivation Among Preservice Teachers

Abstract

Strong evidence exists for the high vocational calling reported by candidate teachers, but also for the high rates of attrition early in the profession. Current approaches often explain this paradox by the stress associated with first teaching experiences (i.e., vocational stress processes). By contrast, the present study focuses on the stress experienced during teacher education (i.e., academic stress processes), by analyzing the sources of stress and motivation described in writing by French preservice teachers. Using systematic procedures for content analysis ( N = 106 autobiographical texts), major results suggest that preservice teachers are mostly motivated by their positive views of the teaching profession, but that the academic demands they face during teacher education challenge their motivation to pursue the career. Implications are drawn on ways to analyze and tackle academic stress processes, in an effort to support candidate teachers’ wellbeing and thus limit attrition rates.