Organizational Psychology

Purpose. The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between teacher candidates’ motivation and their views on future time perspective (Trommsdorff, 1994). The mediating role of academic self-efficacy is also explored. Study design. In this study, which is based on a relational design, data were collected from 751 teacher candidates studying in various undergraduate programs of Education Faculties in Türkiye. Data was obtained from teacher candidates who volunteered to participate in the study through online survey methods. 73% of the participants were women, while 27% were men. Follovihg instruments were used: Future Time Perspective Scale (Carstensen; Lang,1996; Soylu, Ozekes, 2020); Brief Regulation of Motivation Scale (Kim, Brady, Wolters, 2018; Saricam, Erdemir, 2019); Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (Jerusalem, Schwarzer, 1981; Yılmaz et al., 2007). The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping methods. Findings. According to the findings of the study, there are significant relationships between motivation, future time perception and academic self-efficacy variables. According to the results of structural equation analysis, future time perspective and academic self-efficacy together explained 30% of the variance in motivation. In addition, academic self-efficacy plays a mediating role in the relationship between motivation and future time perspective. Research limitations. In this study, the relationship between motivation and academic self-efficacy with future time perspective was examined. In different studies, researchers can conduct by including different variables that are thought to affect the future time perspective of teacher candidates. Another limitation can be defined as the cross-sectional and self-reporting nature of the data precludinga deeper investigation of the hypotheses. By conducting longitudinal studies, psychological factors affecting teacher candidates’ future time perspective can be examined.