Factors Influencing Teaching as a Career Choice

Author(s):

Wenting Wang(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES H 02, Vocational Education and Training

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-22

11:00-12:30

Room:

W3.11

Chair:

M. Allyson Macdonald

Contribution

Objective

Teacher ability and teacher beliefs have been shown to be closely tied to student learning and student achievement (Bandura 1993, Goddard 2002, OECD 2005). A recent report reveals that many OECD countries are currently experiencing the shortage of qualified teachers, aging teaching workforce and high levels of early career burnout and attrition. Attracting effective teachers in the coming year should be a considerably important concern for all OECD countries (OECD 2009b). For example, in the UK context, about 40% of people who commence on a teaching training course in England never have taken up a teaching job; and of those who do enter teaching, about 40% were leaving teaching and changed to another career within one to five years (Kyriacou & Kunc 2007). Similarly, according to a review of teacher education in Scotland (Donaldson 2011), there have been difficulties in attracting and retaining effective teachers across the UK, particularly in encouraging science and mathematics graduates into the teaching profession. In this connection, if policy makers or schools would like to attract highly qualified and committed people into teaching, they need to understand the reasons behind the choice of a teaching career as well as the factors sustain teacher commitment, interest and enthusiasm. To date, less attention has been received to addressing this issue in a comprehensive way, particularly in the Scottish context. This research thus primarily aims to contributes towards an understanding of what underpins student teachers who already embarked on teacher education programme in Scotland to pursue a teaching career, and attempts to explore what motivates them at different points in their career by comparing between those who chose teaching as their first choice and those who changed their career to teaching.

Theoretical Framework

This research is coached within Watt and Richardson's (2007) Factors Influencing Teaching Choice (FIT- Choice) Framework, underpinned by expectancy-value motivational theory (Eccles et al. 1983; Eccles 2005). This framework sheds light on why individuals choose teaching as a career choice, their perceptions about the demand and reward of a teaching profession as well as the level of career satisfaction and commitment (Richardson & Watt, 2006). Although a large array of the studies suggest that motivations or reasons for choosing a teaching career fall into three main categories: intrinsic, extrinsic and altruistic reasons (Bastick, 2000; De Cooman et al., 2007; Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000; Moran et al., 2001; Sinclair, 2008; Yong, 1995), Watt and Richardson (2007, 2012) argue that this traditional typology might be lack of a precise definition and influential factors regarding social influences and prior teaching and learning experiences (Richardson & Watt, 2006; Watt & Richardson, 2007). The design of FIT-Choice framework is in response to the absence of a cohesive and holistic framework in the area of teacher motivation and career choice. Specifically, FIT-Choice model taps various underlying motives identified in the existing literature and has been validated across various contexts including Australia, Ireland, Turkey, Germany, Norway, the USA and China with sound evidence of reliability and construct validity (Eren & Tezel 2010; Watt et al., 2012). Therefore, the FIT-Choice framework might provide a more systematic integrative and reliable way to understand why teaching is chosen as a career choice.

Method

Based on philosophical orientation of pragmatism, this study combines both quantitative and qualitative research and data. The fieldwork began by distributing questionnaire to those who were undertaking first-year preservice teacher education (PGDE students and first-year MEduc students) at University of Glasgow, in the UK in 2015- 2016. This aims to seek participants' quantified ideas or reasons for entering teaching as well as to assist with identifying areas for further interview schedule. The follow-up semi-structured interview, on the other hand, was designed to ask exploratory, open-ended questions to collect more detailed views on the initial quantitative data and obtain in-depth information from both career changers and those initially decided to become a teacher regarding reasons for choosing teaching as a profession. It is worth mentioning that the questionnaire was based upon a standardised questionnaire named “Factors Influencing Teaching Choice (FIT-Choice) scale” which was created by Watt and Richardson (2007), based on expectancy-value motivational theory (Eccles et al. 1983; Eccles 2005). The reason for using this particular questionnaire is that FIT-Choice framework contains various main factors identified in the existing literature; this can be viewed as more precise and integrative conceptual framework to address the issue why teaching is chosen as a career choice (Watt & Richardson 2007). Additionally, the FIT-choice scale has been examined by researchers from different sociocultural contexts and settings (e.g.: Australia, Turkey, Germany, Norway, USA and China) with sound evidence of reliability and construct validity (Watt et al., 2012; Eren & Tezel 2010).

Expected Outcomes

The findings of preliminary analysis of the questionnaire data revealed that the most influential motives for choosing a teaching career are a complex combination of different types of factors. Highest rated influential factors from questionnaire include “shape future of children and adolescents”, “work with children and adolescents”, “intrinsic value”, “perceived teaching ability” and “make social contribution”. This is followed by “enhance social equity”, “prior teaching and learning experiences” and “job security”. Interview data emphasised slightly different main reasons for pursuing a teaching career that intrinsic and altruistic factors in terms of interest and influence young people largely influenced participants’ decision to enter teaching. It was interesting that making contribution to the society was not highlighted at all in the interview but this was rated highly in the questionnaire. With respect to perception about teaching, both questionnaire and interview findings demonstrated that teaching is perceived as very high in demand in terms of the workload and hard work but not providing with very high return in relation to salary and social status. Additionally, it is found that the motivation for pursuing a teaching career was significantly associated with or interacted with pre-service teacher’s attitude and perception about teaching.

References

Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. Educational Psychologist, 28, pp.117-148. Donaldson, G. (2011). Teaching Scotland’s future: Report of a review of teacher education in Scotland. http://www.gov.scot/resource/doc/337626/0110852.pdf Eccles, J. S. (2005b). Subjective task value and the Eccles et al. model of achievement-related choices. In A. J. Elliot & C. S. Dweck (Eds.), Handbook of competence and motivation. New York: Guilford. Eccles, J.S. (2005). Subjective task value and the Eccles et al. model of achievement-related choices. In A.J. Elliot & C.S. Dweck (Eds.), Handbook of competence and motivation. New York, NY: Guilford, pp. 105-121. Eccles, J.S., Adler, T.F., Futterman, R., Goff, S.B., Kaczala, C.M., Meece, J.L., et al. (1983). Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors. In J.T. Spence (Ed.), Achievement and achievement motivation. San Francisco, CA: W.H. Freeman, pp.75–146. Eccles, J. S., & Wigfield, A. (1995). In the mind of the actor: The structure of adolescents' achievement task values and expectancy-related beliefs. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, pp.215-225. Eren, A. & Tezel, K.V. (2010). Factors influencing teaching choice, professional plans about teaching, and future time perspective: A mediational analysis. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, pp.1416-1428. Goddard, R. (2002). A theoretical and empirical analysis of the relationship between teacher and collective efficacy in urban schools. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 807-818. Kyriacou, C. and Kune, R. (2007). Beginning teachers’ expectations of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, pp.1246–1257. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2005). Teachers matter: Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers. Paris: OECD Publishing. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2009b). Education at a glance 2009. OECD Indicators. Watt, H. M. G. (2006). The role of motivation in gendered educational and occupational trajectories related to math. In H. M. G. Watt & J. S. Eccles (Eds.), Understanding women's choice of mathematics and science related careers: Longitudinal studies from four countries. Educational Research and Evaluation, 12, pp.305-322. Watt, H.M.G. & Richardson, P.W. (2007). Motivational factors influencing teaching as a career choice: Development and validation of the FIT-Choice scale. Journal of Experimental Education, 75, pp.167-202. Watt, H.M.G., Richardson, P.W., Klusmann, U., Kunter, M., Beyer, B., Trautwein, U., et al. (2012). Motivations for choosing teaching as a career: An international comparison using the FIT-Choice scale. Teaching and Teacher Education, 28, pp.791-80

Author Information

Wenting Wang (presenting / submitting)

University of Glasgow

Glasgow

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