title: An investigation of emotional intelligence, epistemic beliefs and academic intrinsic motivation among student teachers in Pakistan
Creators: name: Shafiq, Farah
Publisher: name: University of Glasgow
Year: 2017
Subjects: subject: Emotional intelligence, epistemic beliefs, academic intrinsic motivation.

description: Educational research has emphasised the importance of emotional intelligence, epistemic beliefs and academic intrinsic motivation to the teaching and learning process, with a large number of studies focusing on these areas in different contexts and at different levels of education. The contribution the present study makes to this scholarship is threefold: firstly, it fills a gap in the literature by exploring these constructs with students enrolled on teacher education courses. Secondly, the research is conducted in the context of Pakistan, where there is a paucity of educational research concerning these three constructs. This thesis argues that attention to these three significant elements of the teaching and learning process are neglected in Pakistani teacher education institutions, and thus paying attention to them may improve the quality of education in the country. Furthermore, the third contribution made by this study is its exploration of all three constructs in relation to some basic demographic variables and in investigating how the emotional intelligence scores and epistemological beliefs scores of Pakistani student teachers might relate to their academic intrinsic motivation. This extends the findings from previous research, which has tended to explore these constructs individually, and has not explored the concepts in the Pakistani teacher education context. The main aims of the present study are to explore (a) the relationship of emotional intelligence, epistemic beliefs and academic intrinsic motivation with demographic variables such as gender, age, previous area of study and previous highest educational qualification; (b) the relationship between student teachers’ epistemic beliefs and their academic intrinsic motivation; and (c) the relationship between the emotional intelligence and the academic intrinsic motivation of prospective teachers. The study used questionnaires to collect data from 617 prospective teachers in Pakistan. The questionnaire gathered basic data on four demographics variables: gender, age, previous area of study and previous educational highest qualification. The questionnaire also included a measure for each of the three constructs of emotional intelligence, epistemic beliefs and academic intrinsic motivation. The thesis begins by setting out the context of teacher education in Pakistan, arguing that the quality of education in Pakistan would be enhanced by greater attention to developing student teachers’ understanding of emotional intelligence, epistemic beliefs and academic intrinsic motivation, and how these constructs impact on their teaching as well as on students’ learning. The thesis also reviews the international literature specifically regarding the three constructs, setting out the background of each of these constructs and discussing how they have been studied in the context of educational research. The review of the literature finds that while these constructs are highly significant in educational research, they have not been extensively studied in the context of a) teacher education, b) Pakistan, and c) how emotional intelligence and epistemic beliefs dimensions predict or relate to academic intrinsic motivation dimensions. The current findings indicated that student teachers had high attributes related to emotional intelligence and academic intrinsic motivation compared to epistemic beliefs. For gender analysis in relation to the three measures, more significant results were found regarding emotional intelligence and epistemic beliefs. The age analysis in relation to the three constructs did not indicate many statistically significant differences. Differences based on the previous areas of studies of the research participants and the three constructs indicated some significant differences. The differences based on education level in relation to the three measures indicated significant results on two measures namely: academic intrinsic motivation and epistemic beliefs, however the results were very inconsistent. The analysis of the relationship between epistemic beliefs and academic intrinsic motivation revealed significant results on three dimensions, from which two were positively linked with academic intrinsic motivation dimensions. The analysis of the relationship between the emotional intelligence of student teachers and their academic intrinsic motivation revealed that all the emotional intelligence dimensions were positively linked with academic intrinsic motivation dimensions. In comparison, emotional intelligence appears to be a better predictor of academic intrinsic motivation compared to epistemological beliefs, as there were more significant results and positive associations between the dimensions of emotional intelligence and academic intrinsic motivation. Overall, the study highlights the significance of the development of emotional intelligence and epistemic beliefs of student teachers in the context of Pakistan. It is advisable that teacher education institutions in the country should focus on these areas. Finally, recommendations related to the study are presented for the attention of teacher education institutions.