Investigation of the Relationship Between Pre-Service Teachers' Moral Disengagement Levels and Academic Motivation

OpenAlex İngilizce

Moral disengagement, which means that an individual does not feel remorse of conscience when he/she behaves outside of moral standards, has attracted research interest in recent years. The present study aims to reveal the direction and strength of the relationship between pre-service teachers' moral disengagement levels and their academic motivation. In addition, the research also reveals whether moral disengagement scores differ significantly in terms of various variables. The research, which was designed with relational survey method, was carried out on a total of 417 pre-service teachers studying in different departments of the Faculty of Education. 'Moral Disengagement Scale' and 'Academic Motivation Scale' were used to collect the data. Spearman rhu correlation test, Mann Withneyy U and Kruskall Wallis analyses were used in the analysis of the data. In addition, Dunnett T3 test was used to analyse which group was in favour of the significant difference between the groups. As a result of the study, no significant relationship was found between academic motivation and moral disengagement total scores. When the results of the research are evaluated in general, it can be concluded that moral disengagement is negatively related to positive behaviours and positively related to negative behaviours. In other words, as positive behaviours increase, moral disengagement decreases, and as negative behaviours increase, moral disengagement increases. For this reason, intervention programmes for positive behaviour should be developed.