In recent years various reforms and special improvement programmes (e.g. BMBF, 2014) have taken place in Central European German speaking teacher education systems aiming to improve the quality of teacher education and to support teacher education in ‘finding its footing in the landscape of higher education’ (Zgaga, 2013). In the mid-2010s a teacher education reform for secondary school teachers was implemented in Austria which meant a structural "system change" (Schnider, 2012; Mayr et al., 2021; Weber et al. 2021): Before a two-tier secondary teacher education system was in place, in which 6-semester courses at Pädagogische Hochschulen qualified teachers for so-called "compulsory schools" for the 10-15 year age group (middle schools, polytechnical schools, special needs education institutions) and at least 9-semester courses at Universities qualified teachers for (general and vocational) “higher and intermediate schools” (for the 10-19 year age group). Through the reform, it was transformed into a common system for all lower, intermediate, and higher secondary schools, consisting of an 8-semester Bachelor and a 4-semester Master source.

We know from research that Pädagogische Hochschulen and universities in the previous two-tier system attracted different student groups: persons studying the shorter courses at Pädagogische Hochschulen showed more interest in educational aspects of their work and preferred practice-oriented short studies, enabling them to quickly enter work life, while persons going for the university teacher education programme were particularly interested in subject-oriented aspects of their studies and were "willing and cognitively able to complete more demanding studies in terms of time and intellect" (Mayr et al., 2021, p. 2; see also Drahmann, Rothland, König & Pflanzl, 2016; Eder, Dämon & Hörl, 2013; Mayr, 2012; Nebel, 2013). These findings from Austria coincide to a large extent with those from other countries or regions that have similarly differentiated structures in the teacher education system, e.g. Switzerland (Denzler & Wolter, 2008) or Baden-Württemberg (Trautwein et al., 2006).

As a consequence of the teacher education reform, secondary teacher training became more demanding in terms of time for all, and possibly also in terms of content and demands for the 1st group of students. As the curricula of the new teacher education tried to find a middle way between the more practice-oriented and discipline-oriented emphases of the previous teacher education systems, also the distinct profiles of the courses changed. Finally, the two previous types of courses channeled graduates into distinct sections of the secondary school system: graduates from PH-courses were licensed to teach in ‘compulsory schools’, while university graduates were to teach in ‘higher and intermediate schools’. As a consequence of the system reform, all secondary school types are now open to every graduate of the new programme, i.e. graduates have to choose which sector to apply for.

In this situation, the questions arise,

(1) whether or not the new teacher education system attracts different students (in terms of their personal characteristics, social background, career expectations) compared to the previous system.

(2) which types of secondary schools graduates prefer as professional places of employment.

To answer these questions, data from the Linz Longitudinal Study of Teacher Education (L3, Weber et al., 2021) is used. Within the framework of this study, two student cohorts (the last cohort of the two OLD programmes and the first cohort of the unified NEW programme) of all four teacher training institutions in the Linz region were repeatedly surveyed. The main cohort is made up of the students of teacher education NEW (n = 445, at the beginning of the programme). They were interviewed five times in the course of the Bachelor's programme (see Table 1). Three survey waves are available for students of teacher education ALT (n = approx. 400 at the beginning of the study programme). It should be noted that the group of ALT students consists of PH students in the six-semester programme for “compulsory schools” (86%) and university students in the nine-semester programme for “higher and intermediate secondary schools” (14%). F All surveys were conducted online via www.SosciSurvey.de (Leiner, 2014), whereby the data collection of waves 1 to 3 took place in the context of compulsory courses. The data collection of wave 4 was conducted both by mail and during registration for internships. The data collection of wave 5, which fell into the first Corona semester, was conducted exclusively via mail invitation, which is reflected in a lower response rate - which, however, is probably also due to other aspects of the first Corona semester. To answer the research questions, we compare OLD students with NEW students, applying chi²-tests and t-tests. Moreover, we apply logistic regression to predict school type preference using sociodemographic variables as well as teaching-related variables.

Preliminary analyses show that the reform has not profoundly changed the influx of students: At the beginning of their studies, the groups of NEW and OLD students do not differ in sociodemographic variables (gender, parental education, non-German language use). However, there may be frictions between student aspirations and actual job opportunities. While the present ratio between teachers in “compulsory schools” and in “higher and intermediate schools” is roughly about 2:1 (Statistik Austria, 2022), one out of six NEW students want to teach in “compulsory schools” and about half of the NEW student body prefer “higher and intermediate schools”; the remaining students (about 40%) do not report preferences for a specific school type (see Mayr et al., 2021, p. 13, for even larger discrepancies). Implications of these findings for school management and educational policy are discussed. Although the analyzed data come from a single European country, the results may be of broader European relevance, as the structural focus of the reform allows for discussing relationships between teacher education reforms and their interactions with the school system. Furthermore, the results - due to similar structural features and developmental problems - may also be informative for other German-speaking systems (Kotthoff & Symeonidis, 2021).

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