Social Desirability Bias in Altruistic Motivation for Choosing Teaching as a Career


Erten I. H.

HACETTEPE UNIVERSITESI EGITIM FAKULTESI DERGISI-HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, cilt.30, sa.1, ss.77-89, 2015 (SSCI) identifier identifier

Özet

Using different tools of data collection often leads to controversial results as to what constitutes the best attractor to teaching as a profession. Quantitative survey studies report altruistic reasons as the prevailing factors whereas qualitative studies highlight intrinsic and extrinsic reasons with a possible link to a social desirability bias posed by scales/questionnaires. This paper reports on findings of a study that explored whether/how different tools of data collection yield different entry motivations. 248 student teachers of English at a state university in Ankara completed three different instruments: a qualitative self-report survey form; FIT-Choice Scale (Watt & Richardson, 2007); and a ranking task where participants ranked five most important reasons from the FIT-Choice Scale. The analysis of the data revealed that the qualitative instrument and the ranking task yielded that intrinsic reasons were the best motivators, followed by ability, extrinsic, and altruistic reasons. However, in the FIT-Choice Scale data, the altruistic reasons were the best attractors. This study concludes that the altruistic reasons in the FIT-Choice Scale may have enjoyed an inflated popularity due to their socially desirable properties and that research studies into entry motivations need to take precautions to deal with such a response bias.