Educational Beliefs and Passion among Preservice Teachers: A Comparative Statistical Analysis

Abstract

Educational beliefs and passion for teaching are two important factors contributing to teachers’ quality in a successful education system. This is a quantitative study where data has been collected via self-administered questionnaires. The objective of this study was to identify the differences for the sub-constructs of educational beliefs and passion for teaching among Malaysian and Chinese pre-service teachers. The sample consisted of 409 preservice teachers from Malaysia and China. Results demonstrated that Malaysian preservice teachers scored the highest mean for traditionalism whereas the Chinese preservice teachers obtained the highest mean for romanticism. As for passion, the Malaysian and Chinese preservice teachers reported the highest mean in harmonious passion. The findings further reported that as for educational beliefs, the mean of two countries in their traditionalism and progressivism educational beliefs were significantly different. Pre-service teachers from Malaysia reported higher mean than those from China in both cases. Regarding passion for teaching, the differences were only found in obsessive passion where Malaysian pre-service teachers reported the higher mean.  

Keywords: Educational Beliefs, Passion, Pre-Service Teachers, Traditionalism, Progressivism, Romanticism, Harmonious Passion and Obsessive Passion