ERIC Number: EJ1234509
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0260-7476
EISSN: N/A
Pre-Service Teachers' Motivations for Choosing Teaching as a Career: Does Subject Interest Matter?
Journal of Education for Teaching: International Research and Pedagogy, v45 n5 p494-510 2019
The present study examines future teachers' motivations for teaching using the FIT-Choice (Factors Influencing Teaching Choice) scale. The focus thereby is on subject interest, a factor that has rarely been accounted for by FIT-Choice studies although it is considered one of the most important factors to students for choosing teaching as a career. It is also assumed that students of different subject domains belong to different subcultures and therefore differ in their motivations. On the basis of n = 386 first-year, Bachelor students qualifying for lower and upper secondary schools from a large university in Germany, a latent confirmatory factor analysis shows that the FIT-Choice scale structure could be replicated and subject-specific interest was rated the most important factor by pre-service teachers. Latent path analyses reveal that students from different subject domains differ slightly in their motivations. More importantly, students who value their studied subjects' importance highly also show higher intrinsic, social-altruistic, and pedagogical motivations.
Descriptors: Preservice Teachers, Student Motivation, Career Choice, Teaching (Occupation), Student Interests, Intellectual Disciplines, College Freshmen, Secondary School Teachers, Altruism, Foreign Countries, Teacher Education, Social Studies, Humanities, STEM Education
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Germany
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A