Teacher Preparation, Motivation, and Self-Efficacy: A Comparative Study of New Teachers in Japan and the United States

Abstract

Using the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018, this study examines U.S. and Japanese new teachers’ initial teacher preparation (ITP), feelings of preparedness, motivations, and self-efficacy. The analysis of 355 U.S. and 433 Japanese new secondary teachers provided several findings. First, ITP in the U.S. more often included teaching in mixed-ability and multicultural settings, cross-curricular skills, and technology than Japan, and U.S. teachers felt more prepared than Japanese teachers in every category of preparation. Second, Japanese teachers were more likely to declare teaching as their first career choice and reportedly scored significantly higher on motivations to become a teacher of personal utility value, while U.S. new teachers scored higher on social utility value. Third, there were no significant differences in self-efficacy between U.S. and Japanese new teachers. This study contributes to the gap of large-scale, comparative literature between the U.S. and Japanese initial teacher preparation. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.

Early Career Teachers’ Motivation, Preparation, and Self-Efficacy

“…Regression analyses showed new teachers' preparedness is associated with teacher self-efficacy. This result confirms the that there is a positive relationship between teachers' feeling of preparedness and self-efficacy (Darling-Hammond et al, 2002;Shaukat et al, 2023;Wang et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2021). In this study data indicate that feelings of preparedness predict TSE in all domains.…”

“…Regarding new teachers' report of their motivations to become a teacher, the results of this study confirm the previous research that teachers consider social utility values as the most important motivational factor of becoming a teacher (Thomson & Palermo, 2014;Shaukat et al 2023;Wang et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2021). The findings of two subscales of motivation and their specific items show that the level of their social values is higher than the level of the personal value.…”

“…Researchers investigated the results of entering the profession well-prepared. There is some evidence that the perceived quality of a teacher's ITP does predict their self-efficacy later in their career (Zhang et al, 2021) as well as their instructional practices (Wang et al, 2021). With the construct of teaching in multicultural/multilingual classrooms added to self-efficacy measurement, TALIS 2018 allowed us to examine the relationship between teacher preparedness and TSE.…”