This article investigates teachers' professional identity of beginning first-year students through their beliefs about being a teacher. The presented study focuses on Austrian teacher students' (N=18) conceptions of becoming a professional; what convictions student teachers reflect on, which professional identity emerges and what synthesis of a…

In education, there is a common understanding that teachers contribute significantly to the motivation of their pupils. However, the instructors' own psychological needs in the tradition of the Self-determination Theory (Ryan and Deci Self-determination theory: basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness, Guilford Press, New…