Teacher shortages are a severe challenge for education systems worldwide (UNESCO, 2024). Strategies to address this issue include diversifying pathways into teaching, improving retention, and increasing the number of graduates from teacher education. Student teachers who leave university without a degree exacerbate shortages and impose costs on universities and the wider economy.

This study focuses on student teachers who intend to leave teacher education. Following Heublein’s definition, dropout refers to leaving higher education without a degree (Heublein, 2014). We examine drop out within teacher education specifically.

Several theoretical models frame drop out. Tinto (1975) emphasizes social and academic integration. Heublein (2014) proposes a three-phase model: (1) pre-study factors (social/academic background and degree choice), (2) study situation (motivation, behavior, performance, resources, and study/living conditions), and (3) the decision phase culminating in leaving. Motivation for or against drop out can be situated within expectancy–value theory (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). Bargmann et al. (2022) found that task effort and interest are associated with career decidedness and dropout intentions among student teachers.

Evidence on dropout in teacher education is mixed across institutions and programs. For example, Güldener et al. (2020) report lower dropout rates in German “Gymnasium” programs than in primary education. Mouton et al. (2020) showed that dropout intentions are multifactorial and most frequent early in studies, identifying 12 student profiles via latent class analysis. For student teachers, Westphal et al. (2024) identified three profiles of cognitive and motivational characteristics; students with an engaged mindset showed lower intentions to quit.

Given that dropout appears (a) concentrated in the first year, (b) driven by combinations of factors, and (c) shaped by an individual decision process, we focus on the question how many student teachers drop out during their first year, and what explanations do leavers provide.

In Austria, secondary teacher education is organized into four clusters qualifying graduates to teach in “Mittelschule,” “Gymnasium,” and vocational schools (general education subjects) (Hofmann et al., 2020). At one Austrian university, we monitored all first-year students in secondary teacher education (N = 326), examining administrative data after the first semester and after the first year. We also conducted a longitudinal qualitative study. 21 students were randomly invited and consented to participate in an interview panel. They completed three interviews in the first semester and one in the second. To enrich data on drop out, we additionally interviewed one peer who had expressed drop out intentions. In total, seven leavers were identified; six were panel participants who left during the first year, and one was the additional interviewee. Interviews were analyzed using the Dokumentarische Methode (Nohl, 2017), which identifies articulated reasons and reconstructs shared orientations within and across cases to derive types. We first coded explicit reasons for leaving, then interpreted underlying orientations and resources. The seven leavers were grouped into two types based on convergent orientations. We then contrasted these with interview data from students who continued in teacher education to contextualize differentiating factors.

After one semester (March 2025), 81,9 % of all first-year students continued their degree and after one year (October 2025) 68,1 % started in their third semester in secondary teacher education. Thus, 31,9 % of all first-year students in the teacher education programme dropped out and were not registered in this programme. This number does not include students who changed one or more subjects within teacher education. Preliminary results of the interview data may be characterised into two types: The first type (resource-secure switchers, n=3) includes students with at least on parent holding a university degree. These students announced drop out intentions during the first month of the study programme as they had previously failed an entrance examination in another study degree. All three have a common orientation as they have sufficient resources (social and financial) to leave teacher education and prepare well for the according entrance examination once more. According to Bourdieu and Passeron (1971) they have the cultural capital to succeed in this change. The second type (misfit realizers) could be characterised by “that’s not for me”. A common orientation in their interview data revealed a kind of “study shock” in the very beginning of their first year. The leavers differed in reasons what parts of teacher education they did not find suitable: Some expected different content within their subjects, others were irritated by pedagogical experience. These results underline that drop out intentions are multifaceted, complex and are strongly connected to the individual context. Therefore, predicting tools (Scheidig & Holmeier, 2023) are critically discussed and the potential of peer mentoring is analysed.

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