Prospective teachers’ future time perspective and professional plans about teaching: The mediating role of academic optimism Altay Eren * Abant _ Izzet Baysal University, Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Education, Gölköy Campus, 14280 Bolu, Turkey article info Article history: Received 8 February 2011 Received in revised form 31 July 2011 Accepted 8 September 2011 Keywords: Motivation Teacher Career Future Optimism abstract This study aimed to examine the mediating role of prospective teachers’ academic optimism in the relationship between their future time perspective and professional plans about teaching. A total of 396 prospective teachers voluntarily participated in the study. Correlation, regression, and structural equation modeling analyses were conducted in order to examine the mediating role of academic optimism. Results demonstrated that the relationships between future time perspective and planned effort, planned persistence, and professional development aspirations were significantly and fully mediated by academic optimism; whereas the relationship between future time perspective and leadership aspirations was not. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Attracting talented and motivated people into the teaching profession and increasing teaching and teacher quality are inter- national concerns that occupy policy makers and researchers from a diverse range of countries, such as the United States, the Neth- erlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Australia (OECD, 2005; UNESCO, 2008). Therefore, it is not surprising to observe that a growing body of research examines the underlying reasons of what motivates individuals to become teachers and what motivates people from other careers to enter into the teaching profession (Anthony & Ord, 2008; Brookhart & Freeman, 1992; Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000; Mori, 1965; Richardson & Watt, 2005, 2006; Roness, 2011; Roness & Smith, 2010; Sinclair, Dowson, & McInerney, 2006; Watt & Richardson, 2007, 2008; Williams & Forgasz, 2009). On the other hand, when compared to motivations for teaching, there appears to be less research on teachers’ Professional Plans about Teaching (PsAT) (Eren & Tezel, 2010; Bruinsma & Jansen, 2010; Watt & Richardson, 2008; Watt, Richardson, & Tysvaer, 2007). Given that in many countries a good number of teachers leave the profession in the first five years after graduation from a teacher education program to seek careers other than teaching (Fantilli & McDougall, 2009; Scheopner, 2010), it is necessary to highlight teachers’ PsAT in order to understand the reasons behind this significant loss. Therefore, the present study focused on prospective teachers’ PsAT together with other important vari- ables: Future Time Perspective (FTP) and Academic Optimism (AOP). 2. Conceptual framework 2.1. Academic optimism Optimism is a personal disposition which reflects one’s “positive affective evaluation of the future” (Marko & Savickas, 1998, p. 107). In other words, optimism is “an individual difference variable that reflects the extent to which people hold generalized favorable expectancies for their future” (Carver, Scheier, & Segerstrom, 2010, p. 879). Considerable research has shown the beneficial aspects of optimism in relation to physical health (e.g., Rasmussen, Scheier, & Greenhouse, 2009; Segerstrom, 2005), happiness and well-being (e.g., Mahon & Yarcheski, 2002; Weaver & Habibov, 2010), plan- ning and personality (Buehler & Griffin, 2003), and achievement (Peterson, 2000). Recent research has also shown that optimism can be conceptualized specifically to teaching and learning contexts such as schools. Accordingly, optimism has been labeled as AOP and examined as a school-level variable (Hoy & Smith, 2007; Hoy, Tarter, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2006). More recently, AOP has been conceptualized as a teacher-level variable, and labeled as Teacher Sense of Academic Optimism * Tel.: þ90 0374 254 10 00; fax: þ90 374 253 45 06. E-mail address: eren_a@ibu.edu.tr. Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Teaching and Teacher Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate 0742-051X/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2011.09.006 Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 111e123