A questionnaire survey was conducted with 106 in-service teacher education students of a university in Hong Kong to study their motives and commitment in teaching. Three motive factors were identified in their choice of teaching as a career, the most influential one is "intrinsic/altruistic motive", the next one is "extrinsic motive/job condition" and lastly "influence from others". Within the intrinsic/altruistic motive, around 80% to 95% teachers considered teaching is meaningful, they desired to teach the subjects they liked, they wished to help others and to work with children/teenagers. Four factors representing the areas or aspects of teaching which influenced the teachers' dedication and commitment were found, viz., "students' learning and school development", "demands on teaching and school practices", "teaching as a career choice", "teacher-pupils interaction and attitudes". Correlational analyses showed that intrinsic/altruistic motive was significantly related to the four commitment factors, suggesting that the motives held by the teachers in joining the teaching profession (in particular, intrinsic/altruistic motive) is influential upon teachers' commitment in teaching. Further analysis of the item responses highlights the elements affecting teachers' commitment in teaching involve school head, colleagues, students, parents and educational changes, which deserve the attention of the education authority to address with appropriate measures.
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A survey study was conducted with 251 preservice teacher education students in Hong Kong by administering a questionnaire comprising three inventories to measure their conceptions of learning, culturally oriented achievement motivation and learning strategies. Preliminary correlational analyses of the above three variables showed significant relationships between some subscales, consistent with previous research findings in literature which suggested that conceptions of learning are related to a number of variables such as students' learning approaches and the quality of learning. Further analysis was conducted by testing a structural model on selected categories of conceptions of learning (learning as an increase in knowledge and learning as personal fulfilment), culturally oriented achievement motivation and learning strategies. Satisfactory goodness of fit index was obtained with the proposed model. Path analysis showed that the conception "learning as an increase in knowledge" was positively and significantly related to social oriented achievement motivation, deep strategy and surface strategy; individual oriented achievement motivation was positively and significantly related to deep strategy but negatively and significantly related to surface strategy. The conception "learning as personal fulfilment" was positively and significantly related to individual oriented achievement motivation but negatively and significantly related to social oriented achievement motivation. Implications for learning and teaching were drawn based on the model result.
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