1 Introduction

Previous studies demonstrated that the hopes of teachers/prospective teachers (henceforth PTs) were significantly related to their persistence in the teaching profession, sense of personal responsibility for teaching, and quality of classroom practices (e.g. Birmingham 2009; Eren 2014; Kelchtermans 1999). However, these studies either examined hope as a dispositional (i.e. trait-like) variable (e.g. Bullough and Hall-Kenyon 2011) or focused on teachers’/PTs’ teaching-specific hopes only (Conway and Clark 2003). Furthermore, they did not examine teachers’/PTs’ dispositional and teaching-specific hopes together with their sources and motivational forces.

This can be due to the lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework in which PTs’ dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, their sources, and motivational forces are discernible. Indeed, only one study has examined the mentioned aspects of PTs’ hopes (Eren and Yeşilbursa, submitted-for-publication). Nonetheless, Eren and Yeşilbursa used a grounded theory approach, which means that the links between PTs’ dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, their sources, as well as their motivational forces on PTs’ preparation to the teaching profession remain to be challenged.

To examine the mentioned aspects of PTs’ hopes in a quantitative manner may provide a solid and reliable basis to examine the links between PTs’ hopes and other teaching related variables, such as teacher identity and persistency in the teaching profession. Likewise, hope is a crucially relevant factor related to the development of teacher identity regarding the challenging aspects of the teaching profession such as classroom management (Conway and Clark 2003), and it is associated with the quality of teachers’ classroom practices (Birmingham 2009) and their persistence in the teaching profession (Kelchtermans 1999). Furthermore, relevant research provides evidence showing that teachers who hold high hope motivate even the most challenging students during lessons (Collinson et al. 2000). Thus, to consider the diverse aspects of teachers’ hopes in a holistic manner may help teacher educators and policy makers to develop a greater insight regarding the associations between teacher hope, student motivation, and achievement, which are among the core concepts of many educational and instructional endeavors and the current educational accountability movements in European countries and the U.S. (Hooge et al. 2012). Therefore, the present study focuses on PTs’ dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, their sources, and motivational forces.

2 Theoretical background

2.1 Definitions and diverse facets of hope

Within earlier frameworks (e.g. Frank 1968), hope was viewed as a unidimensional construct and defined as a positive expectancy of attaining future goals, even when there are obstacles and negative circumstances that may prevent the attainment of these goals (Snyder 2002). Other initial theories of hope also highlighted the value of attaining goals and cognitive appraisals of goal related outcomes (Snyder 1995). Yet others described hope as an emotion (Averill et al. 1990), or a mix of emotions (Lazarus 1999), although they did not deny the roles of goal related cognitive appraisals in hopeful thinking. In contrast to these earlier frameworks, Snyder (2002) viewed hope as a multidimensional construct consisting of two interrelated and goal-oriented thinking processes: agency thinking and pathways thinking. The former refers to “a sense of being able to generate successful plans to meet goals”, whereas the latter refers to “a sense of successful determination in meeting goals in the past, present, and future” (Snyder et al. 1991, p. 570). Thus, hope is defined as “the perceived capacity to derive pathways to desired goals and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways” (Snyder 2002, p. 249).

Considerable research shows that Snyder’s (2002) hope theory provides a solid basis to investigate students’ dispositional hopes. For example, Adelabu (2008) examined the relationships between future time perspective, academic achievement, hope, and ethnic identity of middle and high school students and found that ethnic identity, future time perspective, and hope significantly and independently predicted academic achievement.

In the context of teaching and teacher education, however, the relationships between hope and important teaching-related variables were not so evident. For example, Eren (2014) investigated the mediating roles of PTs’ dispositional hope and academic optimism in the relationships between their emotions about teaching and sense of personal responsibility and found that the mediating role of dispositional hope was not as strong as the mediating role of academic optimism. Bullough and Hall-Kenyon (2011) examined the relationships between PTs’ and in-service teachers’ dispositional hopes and sense of calling to teach (i.e. the inner voice calling an individual to become a teacher). They found that dispositional hopes of both PTs and teachers were weakly related to the sense of calling to teach. Bullough and Hall-Kenyon (2012) also examined the relationships between in-service teachers’ hope, sense of calling, and commitment to teaching and found trivial relationships.

Conversely, qualitative studies provide evidence revealing that PTs consider hope as an important part of their teacher identities and perceive hope as an important factor for the teaching profession in general, and classroom practices in particular (Estola 2003; Hammerness 2003). For instance, Estola (2003) explored how PTs construct their narrative identities with respect to teaching from the perspective of hope. The results demonstrated that the PTs viewed hope as a crucial part of their teacher identities. The results also revealed that PTs had fears of losing hope in the classroom, suggesting that they perceived hope as an important motivational factor influencing their classroom teaching. Hammerness (2003) investigated the diversity in two teachers’ perceptions of school and teaching and learning in a qualitative manner, and found that the role of hopeful thinking was quite important in PTs’ images in relation to both teaching profession and classroom practices.

These mixed results can be because, as Eren and Yeşilbursa (submitted-for-publication) stated, Snyder’s (2002) hope theory does not provide a framework in which PTs’/teachers’ hopes are conceptualized in terms of specific aspects of the teaching profession. Indeed, this hope theory has been criticized for other reasons. For instance, Tong et al. (2010) stated that hope theory does not explain “why some people remain hopeful when they feel that there is nothing they can do to get what they want” (p. 1208).

Based on the mentioned limitations, Eren and Yeşilbursa (submitted-for-publication) recently examined PTs’ dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, their sources, and motivational force on the basis of a grounded theory approach. They found that PTs’ dispositional hopes could be explained through two categories (i.e. active hope and passive hope), while their teaching-specific hopes could be explained through five categories (i.e. relationships with others, teaching, student achievement, student motivation, student development). Borrowing from the work of Miceli and Castelfranchi (2010), Eren and Yeşilbursa (submitted-for-publication) stated that active hope is characterized by attitudes such as “persistence, patience and readiness to take advantage of favoring conditions” (p. 269) while passive hope is characterized by attitudes favoring “a passive waiting for the desired outcome to “spontaneously’ obtain” (p. 268).

Notably, Eren and Yeşilbursa (submitted-for-publication) also found that both dispositional hopes and teaching-specific hopes mainly originated from internal (i.e. self-referenced sources of hope; e.g. hope originates from my internal world), external (i.e. other-referenced sources of hope; e.g. family, peers), and to some extent, combined sources (i.e. both self-referenced and other-referenced sources of hope; e.g. my family then my ability, knowledge, and achievement guide my hopes). Of particular relevance, the results demonstrated that PTs’ teaching-specific hopes had a considerable motivational force on how PTs engaged in their preparation for the profession during teacher education. Although Eren and Yeşilbursa did not investigate the validity and reliability of these categories in a quantitative manner, they provided relevant categories to create a comprehensive theoretical framework in which PTs’ dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, their sources, and motivational forces were evident. The mentioned theoretical framework is illustrated in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Theoretical framework of prospective teachers’ hopes and their motivational forces. Note Theoretical framework was derived from the results of Eren and Yeşilbursa’s (submitted-for-publication) study

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Thus, the current study situates itself on the crossroads of Eren and Yeşilbursa’s (submitted-for-publication) study (Fig. 1), and attempts to examine PTs’ dispositional hopes, teaching specific hopes, their sources, and their motivational forces on PTs’ preparation to the teaching profession in a quantitative manner. Specifically, the aim of this study is twofold: first, to investigate whether the mentioned categories of hopes would provide a valid and reliable framework to examine PTs’ dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes and their sources; and second, to explore whether PTs’ dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, and their sources would significantly predict the actions they took to prepare themselves for the teaching profession during their teacher education. In line with these aims, two overarching research questions were formulated: (a) “Do the mentioned categories of dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, and their sources appear in separate and larger samples of PTs?” (b) Do categories of dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, and their sources significantly predict how PTs engage in preparation for the profession during their teacher education?

3 Method

3.1 Context and participants

Education has always been regarded as an important driving force in the social development of the Turkish nation. Hence, there have been a number of curricular and structural reforms made over the 93-year history of the country (see, e.g., Grossman 2013). The current structure, which was introduced in 2012, differs from the previous system introduced in 1998 with the reduction of the starting age from 72 to 66 months; the extension of the period of compulsory education from 8 to 12 years; the restructuring of primary and secondary education from two tiers of 5 and 3 years to three tiers of 4 years each; and the introduction of a home schooling option for the third tier of compulsory education (OECD 2014).

Since the establishment of the Council of Higher Education (CoHE) in 1981, teacher education in different domains (e.g. social sciences, English language teaching) has been offered in the form of 4-year undergraduate degree programs in the faculties of education of the universities (see, e.g., Çakıroğlu and Çakıroğlu 2003). In order to be accepted onto such a program, all high school students are required to pass the University Entrance Examination (Eren and Coşkun 2015; Kilimci 2009). Currently, the examination consists of two phases: the Higher Education Transition Examination and the Undergraduate Placement Examination (Eren and Coşkun 2015).

Because of the rapidly increasing population over the past 30 years, teacher shortages have posed a major concern in Turkey (Grossman 2013). Hence, a number of short-term alternative routes into teaching have been adopted from time to time to meet this need. For example, in 1997 approximately 30,000 university graduates who had not undergone any form of teacher education were appointed as primary school teachers (Erarslan and Çakıcı 2011). In the early 2000s, non-thesis master programs in education were offered to graduates of 4-year degree programs (see, e.g., Deniz and Şahin 2006), only to be replaced in 2010 by CoHE with 1-year certificate courses in education offered to graduate and final-year students of faculties of science and letters (Erarslan and Çakıcı 2011). On completion of teacher education, teachers are appointed to state schools by means of a centralized selection examination (Yüksel 2012).

As a consequence of recent revisions to the teacher education curriculum (CoHE 2007), PTs are required to take a number of domain-specific courses (e.g. linguistics) in addition to pedagogical courses (e.g. classroom management) regardless of the type of university (i.e. private or state university). The introduction of PTs into real classroom environments occurs during their final year of study. In the first semester of their final year of study, PTs are assigned to local state-run primary and secondary schools to conduct observations over 10 weeks (i.e. School Practice). In the second semester, the PTs conduct at least 6 h of teaching in addition to a number of observations over a 10-week period (i.e. Teaching Practice) (Eren 2012).

Specifically, 851 PTs were randomly sampled from the faculty of education of a large university located in the northwest Black Sea region in Turkey. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 37 years (Mean age = 20.80; SD = 1.94), and all were Turkish nationals. The socioeconomic status of the participants was not investigated in the current study. However, given that both primary and secondary level teachers in Turkey receive salaries that are lower than the OECD average (OECD 2013), it was assumed that the socioeconomic status of the PTs in the study was of low to medium level. The sample characteristics are presented in Table 1.

Table 1 Sample characteristics
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3.2 Research instruments

3.2.1 The dispositional hope and its sources scale

Based on the findings of Eren and Yeşilbursa’s (submitted-for-publication) study, a Dispositional Hope and its Sources (DHOS) scale was developed to assess PTs’ dispositional hopes together with their sources. PTs’ dispositional hopes were described through two categories entitled “active hope” and “passive hope”. Furthermore, this study also considered the sources of dispositional hope, entitled “external” and “internal”.

Accordingly, the researchers initially wrote 22 items that were based on the findings of Eren and Yeşilbursa (submitted-for-publication). These items were refined with the assistance of two colleagues and five graduate students who were blind to the aim of the study. Items were also read by ten undergraduate students in order to further validate their content semantically. This procedure resulted with 19 items in relation to the categories of active hope (five items), passive hope (five items), internal sources (five items), and external sources (four items) (see Appendix). With the exception of external and internal sources of hope related items, all items in the DHOS were preceded by “being hopeful is...”. PTs rated their responses on a five-point Likert-type scale with possible response options ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 5 (very true).

3.2.2 The teaching specific hopes and their sources scale

A Teaching-Specific Hopes and their Sources (TESHOS) scale was developed to assess PTs’ teaching-specific hopes and their sources. It should be noted that the “relationships with others” category consisted of statements regarding the relationships with students and relationships with parents in Eren and Yeşilbursa’s (submitted-for-publication) study. In the present study, however, only those statements of the relationships with students were considered in order to focus on one of the core aspects of the teaching profession specifically.

Thus, the researchers constructed an initial set of 40 items that were based on the findings of Eren and Yeşilbursa’s (submitted-for-publication) study. The procedure that was used in the construction of DHOS was applied to refine these items. The result was 35 items in relation to the categories of relationships with students (four items), student achievement (four items), student motivation (four items), teaching (five items), student development (five items), external sources (five items), and internal sources (seven items) (see Appendix). Items regarding the teaching-specific hopes were connected to the question of “when you become a teacher, to what extent are you hopeful to be able to achieve the following?” whereas items regarding the sources of teaching specific hopes started with “my hope regarding these issues originates from...”. For the items of teaching specific hopes, PTs rated their responses on a five-point Likert-type scale with possible response options ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much), whereas, for the items regarding the sources of teaching specific hopes, they rated their responses on a five-point Likert-type scale with possible response options ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 5 (very true).

3.2.3 The motivational force of teaching-specific hopes scale

To assess whether teaching-specific hopes had a motivational force on PTs’ preparation for the teaching profession, a Motivational Force of Teaching-Specific Hopes (MOFORCE) scale was developed in the current study on the basis of the findings of Eren and Yeşilbursa’s (submitted-for-publication) study. The motivational forces of PTs’ teaching-specific hopes on their preparation to the teaching profession were not defined through specific categories in Eren and Yeşilbursa’s study. Rather, they envisioned the mentioned motivational forces as outcomes of teaching-specific hopes. Nevertheless, PTs’ answers regarding the question of “do these hopes prepare you in any way for your future teaching career? If so, how?” revealed that teaching-specific hopes either facilitated them to be involved in a number of activities both directly and indirectly related to teaching or did not help them to prepare for their careers. This means that teaching-specific hopes either motivated or did not motivate PTs to prepare for their careers, indicating that the MOFORCE may reasonably contain two factors entitled “motivational force” and “amotivational force”.

Thus, the initial step was to write 10 items based on the findings of Eren and Yeşilbursa’s (submitted-for-publication) study. The aforementioned item refinement procedure resulted in eight items regarding the categories of “motivational force” (four items) and “amotivational force” (four items), with possible response options ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 5 (very true). Items of the “motivational force” factor commenced with “I can say that I am already prepared regarding these issues because...” whereas items of the “amotivational force” factor commenced with “I cannot say that I am already prepared regarding these issues because...” (see Appendix).

3.2.4 The life orientation test-revised

The Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R; Scheier et al. 1994) was also used to evaluate the divergent validity of the DHOS, TESHOS, and MOFORCE. The LOT-R is a single-factor scale with six items (e.g. In uncertain times, I usually expect the best) and was translated into Turkish by the authors of this article with the assistance of two colleagues in the foreign languages education department of the university where the present study was carried out. PTs responded to the items of the LOT-R on a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Using the Maximum Likelihood (ML) method of estimation from AMOS 20 (Arbuckle 2011), a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted to check whether the single-factor LOT-R model would be confirmed in the present sample in terms of robust fit indices (i.e. Tucker-Lewis Index-TLI \(\ge \).90; comparative fit index-CFI \(\ge \).90; root mean square error of approximation-RMSEA \(\le \).08) (Kline 2011).

The results showed that one-factor LOT-R model with six items had good fit to data (\(\chi ^{2}(6) = 37.6\); TLI = .94; CFI = .98; RMSEA = .08). However, three negative items (e.g. If something can go wrong for me, it will) were weakly predicted \(({<}.20)\) by the latent factor. Thus, negative items were omitted from the LOT-R. Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was computed as .70 for the LOT-R with three items.

3.3 Procedure

The data were collected during the spring semester of the 2013/2014 academic year by the researchers as a part of a large scale study which contains diverse teaching related variables (e.g. motivations for teaching) in addition to the DHOS, TESHOS, and MOFORCE. Specifically, DHOS, TESHOS, and MOFORCE were applied respectively during one of the regular class hours (e.g. classroom management). The scales were presented to the PTs with instructions concerning the aim of the study and a brief explanation about how to respond to the items in the scales. Demographic variables were assessed by a self-report on DHOS. This study was approved by the board of ethical research in social sciences of the university where the present study was carried out.

3.4 Data analysis

First, a series of multivariate (MANCOVA) and univariate (ANOVA) analyses of covariance was conducted to check the possible effects of demographic variables (i.e. gender, age as a covariate, year of study, and fields of study) on the research variables. The results demonstrated that the effects of demographic variables were negligible (all \({\eta }^{2}_{\mathrm{p}}\) values \(\le .03\)). Thus, demographic variables were not further considered.

As mentioned in the theoretical background section, the first research question was formulated as follows: Do categories of dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, and their sources appear in separate and larger samples of PTs? Both exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) and CFAs were conducted to answer the first research question accurately. Thus, sample of the study (n = 851) was randomly separated to obtain two similar, yet distinct samples. Consequently, the first sample consisted of 421 PTs (305 female) whereas the second sample contained 430 PTs (313 female).

Using the ML method with direct oblimin rotation module from SPSS, three separate EFAs were conducted based on the first sample in order to explore the factor structures of the DHOS, TESHOS, and MOFORCE. In the EFAs, it was focused on whether the contents of factors were constructed by semantically similar items as defined in Eren and Yeşilbursa’s (submitted-for-publication) study and whether the items were considerably related to their respective factors (cut-off .40).

Three separate CFAs were conducted to validate the factor structures of the DHOS, TESHOS, and MOFORCE on the basis of the second sample (n = 430). Based on the whole sample (n = 851), an additional CFA in which the factors of DHOS, TESHOS, and MOFORCE were allowed to associate with each other, was also conducted to examine whether the factors of these scales were empirically distinguishable from each other. This analysis is quite important to control for common method bias in self-report measures (Williams and Anderson 1994).

The second research question was formulated as follows: Do categories of dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, and their sources significantly predict how PTs engage in preparation for the profession during their teacher education? Two multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine whether the categories of dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, and their sources significantly predict PTs’ engagement in preparation to the teaching profession. In the first analysis, motivational force was determined as a dependent variable and the subscales of DHOS and TESHOS were determined as the independent variables; whereas, in the second analysis, amotivational force was determined as a dependent variable and the subscales of DHOS and TESHOS were determined as the independent variables. Based on the results of regression analysis, a structural model was created. This model served as a baseline model through which alternative models were examined by conducting a model comparison analysis. In order to choose the best fitting model, it was investigated whether the changes in Chi-Square and its degrees of freedom \((\Delta {\chi }^{2}(\Delta {df}), p<.05)\), Tucker-Lewis Index \((\Delta \hbox {TLI} >.01)\), and the Akaike Information Criterion \((\Delta \hbox {AIC} >10)\) were substantial (Burnham and Anderson 2002; Cheung and Rensvold 2002). To control for the possible Type I error rates which may appear as consequence of conducting numerous SEM analyses based on the same sample, all SEM analyses were conducted on the basis of 1000 bootstrap sample by using the percentile bootstrap method.

4 Results

4.1 Validity and reliability of the DHOS, TESHOS, and MOFORCE

For the DHOS, the scree plot revealed that the four-factor solution was the best option when compared to other number of solutions. As a result, the first (26.99%), second (7.06%), third (5.47%), and fourth (3.41%) factors explained 42.94% of the total variance. Although some items were not retained, each factor consisted of relevant items as described by Eren and Yeşilbursa (submitted-for-publication) with factor loadings equal to or greater than .53 (Table 2). Therefore, the first, second, third, and fourth factors were labeled as “internal sources” (four items), “external sources” (three items), “passive hope” (four items), and “active hope” (three items), respectively. Cronbach’s Coefficients Alpha for the internal sources \(({\alpha }=.75)\), external sources \(({\alpha }= .77)\), passive hope \(({\alpha }= .73)\), and active hope \(({\alpha }= .70)\) factors were acceptable. Moreover, the four-factor model with 14 items had good fit to data (\({\chi }^{2}(70) = 134.99\); TLI = .94; CFI = .95; RMSEA = .05), with standardized parameter estimations ranging from .43 to .79. Alphas for the internal sources \(({\alpha } = .75)\), external sources \(({\alpha }= .66)\), passive hope \(({\alpha }= .70)\), and active hope \(({\alpha }= .70)\) factors were also acceptable.

Table 2 Summary of the exploratory factor analysis regarding dispositional hope and its sources
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For the TESHOS, the scree plot indicated that the seven-factor solution was more appropriate than other solutions. Consequently, the first (33.40%), second (6.05%), third (3.95%), fourth (3.18%), fifth (2.11%), sixth (1.91%), and seventh (1.81%) factors explained 53.05% of the total variance. Although some items were not retained, each factor included relevant items as described by Eren and Yeşilbursa (submitted-for-publication) with factor loadings equal to or greater than .42 (Table 3). Thus, the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh factors were labeled as “student motivation” (five items), “student development” (five items), “teaching” (three items), “student achievement” (two items), “relationships with students” (three items), external sources (four items), and internal sources (four items), respectively. Alphas for the student motivation \(({\alpha }=.84)\), student development \((\alpha =.90)\), teaching \(({\alpha }=.84)\), student achievement \((\alpha = .88)\), relationships with students \(({\alpha }=.69)\), external sources \(({\alpha }=.73)\), and internal sources \(({\alpha }=.77)\) factors were adequate.

Furthermore, a seven-factor model with 26 items had good fit to data (\({\chi }^{2}(272) = 570.58\); TLI = .94; CFI = .95; RMSEA = .05), with standardized parameter estimations ranging from .53 to .89. Alphas for the student motivation \((\alpha = .87)\), student development \((\alpha = .90)\), teaching \((\alpha = .84)\), student achievement \((\alpha = .88)\), relationships with students \((\alpha = .69)\), external sources \(({\alpha }=.71)\), and internal sources \((\alpha = .76)\) factors were also adequate.

Table 3 Summary of the exploratory factor analysis regarding teaching-specific hopes and their sources
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For the MOFORCE, the scree plot showed that the two-factor solution was more suitable than other solutions. Accordingly, the first (28.39%) and second (11.83%) factors explained 40.22% of the total variance. Each factor contained relevant items as described by Eren and Yeşilbursa (submitted-for-publication) with factor loadings equal to or greater than .46 (Table 4). Therefore, the first and second factors were labeled as “amotivational force” (four items) and “motivational force” (four items) respectively. Alphas for the amotivational force \((\alpha = .70)\) and motivational force \((\alpha = .72)\) factors were satisfactory. Furthermore, two-factor model with eight items fit to the data well (\(\chi ^{2}(19) = 36.68\); TLI = .96; CFI = .97; RMSEA = .05), with standardized parameter estimations ranging from .31 to .80. Alphas for the amotivational force \((\alpha = .65)\) and motivational force \((\alpha = .74)\) factors were also satisfactory.

Table 4 Summary of the exploratory factor analysis regarding motivational force of teaching-specific hopes
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The results of additional CFA revealed that the 13-factor model with 48 items had acceptable fit to the data (\({\chi }^{2}(986) = 1839.47\); TLI = .94; CFI = .95; RMSEA = .03). This means that the subscales of DHOS, TESHOS, and MOFORCE did not empirically overlap each other in the current sample. Finally, the correlation coefficients regarding the relationships between optimism and DHOS, TESHOS, and MOFORCE subscales ranged in magnitude from weak \((r = -.10)\) to moderate \((r = .40)\), indicating that the DHOS, TESHOS, MOFORCE subscales and optimism are related, yet distinctly different constructs (Table 5). This can be taken as evidence for the divergent validity of the subscales of DHOS, TESHOS, and MOFORCE.

Table 5 Descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations
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4.2 Regression analysis

As shown in Table 5, the relationships between DHOS subscales and amotivational force were negative, yet non-significant with one exception (i.e. the relationship between internal sources and amotivational force). Conversely, the relationships between DHOS subscales and motivational force were positive and significant, with coefficients ranging from .16 to .31. Aside from the levels of significance, the relationships between DHOS subscales, amotivational force, and motivational force were quite weak, with the exception of a moderate relationship between internal sources and motivational force (r = .31). Similarly, the relationships between the subscales of TESHOS and amotivational force were also quite weak, with coefficients ranging from -.10 to .02. In contrast, the relationships between the subscales of TESHOS and motivational force were all positive and considerable, with coefficients ranging from .20 to .34. These relationships were further investigated through multiple regression analyses. In the analyses, the effects of optimism were also controlled for. No multicollinearity was detected (variance inflation factors were either equal to or smaller than 2.5). The results of regression analyses are presented in Table 6.

Table 6 Summary of the regression analyses
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As seen in Table 6, active hope \(({\beta }= .03)\), passive hope \(({\beta }= .01)\), and external sources of dispositional hopes \(({\beta }= -.02)\) did not significantly predict motivational force whereas internal sources of dispositional hopes \(({\beta }= .19)\) significantly and positively predicted motivational force. Internal sources of dispositional hopes significantly, yet negatively predicted amotivational force \(({\beta }= -.15)\). The links between teaching-specific hopes, motivational force, and amotivational force were more diverse and selective. Specifically, student development \(({\beta } = .16)\), relationships with students \(({\beta }= .10)\), teaching \(({\beta }=.16)\), and external sources of teaching-specific hopes \(({\beta }= .10)\) were significantly and positively associated with motivational force; whereas none of the teaching-specific hopes were significantly related to amotivational force. Both dispositional hopes and teaching-specific hopes explained a considerable amount of variance in motivational force (20%), whereas they explained only a small amount of variance in amotivational force (4%).

4.3 Structural equation modeling analysis

Based on the results of regression analyses, a structural model was created in which internal sources of dispositional hope was associated with motivational and amotivational forces, whereas student development, relationships with students, teaching, and external sources of teaching-specific hopes were related to motivational force only. The results of SEM analysis in relation to the baseline model are presented in Table 7.

Table 7 Summary of the structural equation modeling analysis regarding the baseline model
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As shown in Table 7, student development \(({\beta } = .15)\), relationships with students \(({\beta }= .12)\), teaching \(({\beta }= .13)\) and their external sources \(({\beta }= .18)\) were significantly and positively predicted motivational force. However, internal sources of dispositional hopes did not significantly predict motivational force \(({\beta }=.05)\) and amotivational force \(({\beta }= .03)\). Nevertheless, the baseline model had good fit to data (see Table 8).

Table 8 Summary of the model comparison analysis
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A model comparison analysis was conducted to examine two alternative models. In the first model, the effects of internal sources of dispositional hopes on motivational and amotivational forces were set to zero, whereas, in the second model, the effects of teaching-specific hopes and their external sources on motivational force were set to zero. The results revealed that excluding the effects of teaching-specific hopes and their external sources on motivational force significantly reduced the model fit. On the other hand, excluding the effects of internal sources of dispositional hopes on motivational and amotivational forces did not significantly reduce the model fit (see Table 8). These results indicate that the baseline model can be well represented with teaching-specific hopes and their external sources without taking into consideration internal sources of dispositional hopes.

5 Discussion

5.1 Dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, their sources, and motivational forces

Results of factor analyses revealed that the PTs’ dispositional hopes could be reliably described by four factors: active hope, passive hope, external sources, and internal sources. These results are in line with previous studies (e.g. Miceli and Castelfranchi 2010). Indeed, it can be expected that both active and passive aspects of hope could appear in a sample contained PTs because hope is a multidimensional concept containing goal related acts, which are characterized by behaviors such as persistence, effort (Snyder 2002), and goal related expectancies, which are characterized by attitudes favoring “a passive waiting for the desired outcome to ‘spontaneously’ obtain” (Miceli and Castelfranchi 2010, p. 268). In fact, the results showed that the relationship between PTs’ active and passive hopes was positive and moderate (see Table 5), suggesting that the PTs held both active and passive hopes simultaneously.

The results also demonstrated that, regardless of their axis (i.e. “active” or “passive”), PTs’ hopes originated from both external and internal sources, which were positively and moderately related to one another, as well as to active and passive hopes (Table 5). This can be expected because individuals’ hopes do not originate from single sources (Bernardo 2010). Rather, they could be “either anchored on oneself (i.e. internal locus) or on significant others (i.e. external locus)” (Du and King 2013, p. 332), each of which has strong potential to provide a basis for individuals’ motivational orientations toward future goals and positive expectancies.

In line with previous research (Eren and Yeşilbursa submitted-for-publication), the results of factor analyses also demonstrated that the PTs’ teaching-specific hopes could be defined through five factors (i.e. student motivation, student development, student achievement, teaching, and relationships with students) together with their two sources (i.e. external and internal sources). This means that PTs do not only have dispositional hopes, but also have hopes in relation to the challenging and specific aspects of the teaching profession. To some extent, these results echoed the results of Conway and Clark (2003), who explored six PTs’ hopes over a 6-month period in a qualitative manner. They found that the PTs’ teaching-specific hopes could be defined through five categories, entitled self-as-teacher, children, curriculum and instruction, university expectations, and self-as-teacher/classroom management.

Although these categories (e.g. children) are somewhat similar to the current categories (e.g. relationships with students), they differ significantly from each other. This can be because the current study was based on relatively a large sample of PTs who major in diverse fields of study such as preschool teaching and English language teaching, which, in turn, could cause the emergence of different categories such as student development and student motivation. Furthermore, Conway and Clark (2003) did not examine PTs’ teaching-specific hopes together with their sources. Thus, the present results broaden our current understanding regarding PTs’ teaching-specific hopes by revealing that the PTs’ teaching-specific hopes, similar to their dispositional hopes, are not without their sources.

Notably, teaching-specific hopes were strongly related to each other (Table 5), signifying that the PTs’ hopes regarding the challenging aspects of the teaching profession converged with each other. Indeed, this result could be expected given the nature of teaching processes (Labaree 2000). For example, to motivate their students during the lessons, teachers should establish positive relations with their students, and organize their teaching processes accordingly and appropriately, which, in turn, may significantly contribute to students’ development and academic achievement. Indeed, these and related issues are crucial parts of any teacher education program containing pedagogical courses (Darling-Hammond and Bransford 2005).

The results also showed that the relationships between internal sources and student motivation, student development, student achievement, teaching, and relationships with students were stronger than the relationships between external sources and the mentioned aspects. This means that the PTs’ teaching-specific hopes regarding the challenging aspects of the teaching profession were more based on internal sources than external sources, which is in line with previous studies (e.g. Bernardo 2010; Du and King 2013). This result can be explained based on the fact that internal motives energize human behaviors more effectively than external motives (Ryan and Deci 2000).

Finally, the results of factor analyses revealed that the motivational force of teaching-specific hopes could be defined through two factors: motivational force and amotivational force. These factors clearly emphasized the motivational roles of teaching-specific hopes given that amotivational force was weakly and negatively related to both dispositional and teaching-specific hopes; whereas motivational force was significantly and positively associated with both dispositional and teaching-specific hopes. This can be because hope is a strong motivational factor in the context of teaching (Birmingham 2009) because teaching is a highly demanding profession (Hargreaves 2000).

5.2 The links between dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, and motivational forces

The results of regression analyses revealed that, regardless of the effects of optimism, PTs’ internal sources of dispositional hope predicted both motivational and amotivational forces, whereas teaching-specific hopes (i.e. student development, relationships with students, teaching) and their external sources predicted motivational force only. These links were further replicated through SEM analysis, with one exception (i.e. the links between internal sources of dispositional hopes and amotivational and motivational forces). This can be expected because, in contrast to the regression analysis, both amotivational and motivational forces were entered simultaneously in the SEM analysis, which enabled the researchers to control for the relationships between them. This may cancel, or at least suppress the univariate effects of internal sources of dispositional hopes on amotivational and motivational forces. Indeed, the results of model comparison analyses demonstrated that to neglect the effects of internal sources of dispositional hopes did not make any sense in the current picture of the relationships between teaching-specific hopes and motivational force.

The null effects of dispositional hopes and their sources on motivational force can be expected because, in contrast to teaching-specific hopes, dispositional hopes do not address the specific and challenging aspects of the teaching profession such as student motivation. Likewise, the items of MOFORCE were directly linked to the teaching-specific aspects of the TESHOS. This may also explain why PTs’ teaching-specific hopes were significantly and positively linked to motivational force, but not significantly linked to amotivational force.

In contrast, the results showed that the student development, relationships with students, and teaching aspects, but not the student achievement and student motivation aspects of the teaching-specific hopes were linked to motivational force. This means that not all teaching-specific hopes motivate PTs to be involved in a number of activities related to teaching during their teacher education. This can be explained based on the fact that the current study contained a sample of PTs who lacked actual teaching experiences and thus had not had any contact with students in the role of teachers. This may lead PTs to forming teaching-specific hopes based on their experiences as “students” instead of actual teaching experiences (Eren and Yeşilbursa submitted-for-publication). Indeed, this may also explain why external sources of teaching-specific hopes, instead of internal sources, predicted motivational force because PTs’ lack of actual teaching experience do not enable them to place their hopes in internal sources, which are mainly based on mastery experiences (Bandura 1997), but rather enable them to place their hopes in external sources such as significant others as role models (e.g. teacher educators and/or teachers). Obviously, these issues require further investigation as the current study did not investigate the roles of actual teaching experiences on their hopeful thinking.

6 Conclusion and implications

Overall results of the study reveal that the theoretical model (Fig. 1) provides a solid basis to examine the links between PTs’ hopes and their motivational forces. Specifically, the results of the present study lead to four major conclusions. First, regardless of the effects of demographic variables and optimism, PTs’ dispositional hopes can be examined based on the axis of “active hope” and “passive hope”. Second, PTs’ teaching-specific hopes can be examined on the basis of diverse and challenging aspects of the teaching profession: student motivation, student development, student achievement, teaching, and relationships with students. Third, both internal and external sources appeared as integral part of PTs’ dispositional hopes and teaching-specific hopes. Fourth, teaching-specific hopes in relation to student development, relationships with students, teaching, and their external sources significantly motivated PTs to be involved in a number of activities related to teaching during teacher education.

A number of important implications can be derived from the current results. First, it has been shown that dispositional hope is considered a preventative factor of teacher burnout and increaser of teacher resilience (Birmingham 2009), and that dispositional hope can play an important role in teaching and teacher quality (Bullough 2011) and teachers’ sense of personal responsibility (Eren 2014). By extension, results of the current study would suggest that teaching-specific hopes could have more prominent and selective links to the factors influencing teacher burnout, teacher resilience, teaching and teacher quality, which are crucial concerns of the teaching profession (Eurydice 2012; OECD 2005), as they capture the specific and challenging aspects of the teaching profession such as student achievement and relationships with students. Thus, teacher educators and policy makers can gain a deeper insight into the factors preventing teacher burnout, as well as into the factors increasing teacher resilience, teaching and teacher quality by considering the potential motivational roles of PTs’ teaching-specific hopes in these mentioned variables.

Furthermore, engaging in reflective practice has been shown to help PTs to make connections between past experiences, present learning and future actions (Deed et al. 2011; Rodgers and LaBoskey 2016; Yeşilbursa 2011). Hence, teacher educators, and teacher education program developers should provide a framework in which PTs can reflect on past experiences and be facilitated to put their hopes into action for the future, which, in turn, may provide robust internal sources for PTs’ teaching-specific hopes. In a previous study, Eren and Yeşilbursa (submitted-for-publication) reported that PTs found both campus-based courses and school-based practicum experiences helpful in providing experiences to form teaching-specific hopes. Moreover, teacher education programs could include courses and activities which raise PTs’ awareness about the importance of and opportunities for professional development after graduation, and this, in turn, may “keep alive” their hopes regarding the challenging aspects of teaching such as student motivation and student achievement. Subsequently, these may motivate PTs to engage in a number of activities related to teaching during teacher education.

Despite these vital implications, the results should be interpreted with caution because of a number of limitations. Primarily, the current study did not directly examine the factors that motivate people to enter the teaching profession (see, e.g., Giersch 2016; Richardson and Watt 2016; Watt and Richardson 2007). The reason for this is that the scope of the current research has focused on the teaching-specific hopes and motivational forces which orient PTs to engage with the process of their teacher education, rather than their motivations for choosing the teaching profession. Moreover, the researchers have dealt with the relationship between dispositional and teaching-specific hopes and the factors influencing teaching choice in more detail in a recent cross-sectional study (Eren and Yeşilbursa, in press). However, the relationships between these constructs obviously merit further research, particularly in longitudinal or experimental studies in different teaching contexts. Other more minor limitations include: first, the sample size was relatively small; second, the correlational design of the study prohibits one to attribute causality to the results; third, because the data were collected based on self-report instruments, they are open to the effect of social desirability; fourth, it is limited to PTs from a single country. Therefore, future research could be conducted with larger and more varied samples; longitudinal and experimental studies that investigate the effects of changes over the course of the teacher education programs in PTs’ dispositional and teaching-specific hopes; social desirability should also be controlled for in future studies; intercultural studies involving PTs from more diverse cultural backgrounds may provide more insight into the concept of teaching-specific hopes. It is the authors’ hope that the current study will provide a solid basis for these and similar future studies.