‘It has always been my dream’: exploring pre‐service teachers’ motivations for choosing to teach

Abstract

This article reports on an investigation into the motivations of a cohort of pre‐service teacher education students, undertaking a five‐year, full‐time combined undergraduate and initial teacher education degree program at the University of Sydney, Australia. Participants completed an extensive questionnaire which sought to gather data on the characteristics of the cohort; the factors that influenced their decision to undertake a teaching degree; their educational and work backgrounds; their perceptions of teaching, teachers and students; their expectations of teaching as a career; and their professional goals. The study found that a majority of participants made the decision to teach based on reasons that reflect personal aspirations to work with young people to make a difference in their lives; to maintain a meaningful engagement with the subject area they were drawn to; and to attain personal fulfilment and meaning. The study found that more than two‐thirds of the sample intended teaching for at least 10 years after being appointed. The article explores the implications of the findings for early career teacher satisfaction, teacher retention and early career teacher attrition.

Introduction

A striking feature in both the government and non‐government sectors across the country are strategies to promote teaching as a career and assist teacher recruitment…Attracting people to the profession is not believed to be the problem it was five years ago, due to active intervention by jurisdictions. (Skilbeck & Connell, 2003, pp. 30, 32).

In response to a range of teacher recruitment campaigns across Australia in recent years there has been a wave of interest in teaching as a career for school leavers, graduates and so‐called ‘career‐changers’. Recruitment initiatives in the States and territories have included appealing media campaigns and marketing drives, financial incentives by way of scholarships and, in New South Wales, for example, the establishment of the teach.NSW web site and a dedicated recruitment shopfront and telephone advice‐line that saw more than 19,000 inquiries in its first year of operation (2002). Of these inquiries, there were twice as many females as males; 7000 were from people contemplating changing careers to teach; and 1800 were from overseas trained teachers seeking employment advice (Kennedy, 2003). At the same time, Australian universities have witnessed a growing demand for places in teacher education courses with a rise in university entry scores for those courses. Despite these pleasing trends, reports in Australia, and internationally, indicate that teacher recruitment continues to demand active policy intervention in many countries, particularly when it comes to certain curriculum areas and staffing of so‐called ‘hard‐to‐staff’ schools (Cochran‐Smith, 2004).

An equally pressing and arguably more complex issue is the increasing rate of early career teacher attrition that research now points to as the critical factor in the teacher demand and supply equation (see Gold, 1996; Goddard & Foster, 2001; McGaw, 2002; OECD, 2002a; OECD, 2002b; Hunt & Carroll, 2003; Skilbeck & Connell, 2003; Smithers & Robinson, 2003; Manuel, 2003b; Ingersoll, 2004; Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development, 2005). The phenomenon of large‐scale early career teacher attrition has serious implications for the future of the teaching profession; not merely in terms of supplying well‐equipped teachers for every classroom, but also in terms of building the cultural and intellectual capital of the profession. There is also the danger of de‐professionalisation through the recruitment of ‘fast‐tracked’, accelerated or underqualified entrants. Such is the gravity of apparent ‘wastage’ in the early career phase that the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (2005) recently completed a major, international study of teacher retention and attrition to in part identify and address the significant challenges to the quality of education brought about by high rates of teacher turnover.

The present study

In the light of this broader context of teacher recruitment, retention and attrition, the present study investigated the motivations of a cohort of pre‐service teacher education students, undertaking a five‐year, full‐time combined undergraduate and initial teacher education (ITE) degree program at the University of Sydney, Australia. The cohort consisted of 79 participants specialising in secondary school teaching, across a range of curriculum areas. The investigation sought to gather data on the characteristics of the cohort: their educational and work backgrounds; the factors that influenced their decision to teach; their perceptions of teaching, teachers and students; their plans for employment upon graduation; their expectations of teaching as a career; and their professional goals. The research also sought to disseminate the voices and views of some of these potential next generation of teachers to the wider profession, policy‐makers, employers and teacher educators.

In response to teacher supply and demand in Australia, Dinham recently commented that:

The surge in popularity of teaching might seem strange at a time when teacher status is low and teacher unions and employers are at loggerheads over salaries and conditions. While recent reports such as those by Vinson and Dinham and Scott have painted a picture of teachers and schools under pressure as they attempt to address the unreasonable expectations society has placed upon them, there’s also a wave of altruism influencing young and not‐so‐young new teachers to take on the challenges of the profession. (Dinham, 2004, p. 2)

This is an intriguing phenomenon, given that teaching is a profession that demands highly attuned interpersonal capacities coupled with profound levels of personal commitment to the ‘common weal’ (Ralston Saul, 1992) in a sociopolitical context that often appears at worst to demonise, and at best to undervalue or misrepresent, the social justice dimensions of teachers’ work. Added to this, the profession faces a seemingly relentless ideological campaign from some sections of the media and conservative politics that has been manifested in a growing push to undermine teacher professionalism; impose standardised testing and use the results of this to justify the withdrawal of support from public education; and codify the curriculum according to narrowly conceived views of education, teaching, learning and knowledge. Set against this, a teacher’s work is undertaken with relatively modest material recompense, with intrinsic rewards that are often elusive or intangible and may not be enough to sustain some teachers over an extended period of time.

What then, are the forces motivating these young and not‐so‐young people to choose to teach, and do their expectations of teaching shed some light on the reasons why so many will, according to the statistics, walk away from the profession within the first years of their career? As Snyder et al. contended in their study of pre‐service teachers in the 1990s:

This question is not only interesting in its own right, it is also an important indicator of how someone will succeed in their chosen profession…teachers who feel that teaching is their ‘calling’ (a natural inclination and ability to teach that is recognised by others) are more likely to succeed than others. (Snyder et al., 1995, p. 7)

To date, the links between motivations to teach, expectations of teaching, and satisfaction and success as a teacher have not been thoroughly explored within an Australian context of early career teacher turnover.

Participants and method

During the first semester of 2003, prior to undertaking curriculum methodology and craft knowledge units of study, and prior to block practical experiences, a group of pre‐service teachers were invited to complete a questionnaire with a series of open‐ended and multiple‐choice questions designed to gather a range of data about motivations and expectations. In 2003, the 79 participants in the present study were undergraduate pre‐service teacher education students in the third year of a five‐year degree. The total cohort for the year, comprising all pre‐service teachers in Year 3 of this particular program, was 98. The return rate of the questionnaire responses was therefore 80%. The Year 3 cohort was selected since they had been exposed to some general units of study in Education in Years 1 and 2 of the degree, and Year 3 marks the key point at which students who choose to remain in the combined degree have made a clear commitment to continue with teacher education studies. In Years 1 and 2 students have the opportunity to transfer from the combined degree into a non‐teaching stream or another degree. We also considered that surveying the Year 3 cohort, immediately prior to their intensive immersion in curriculum method units and practical experience, would enable us to gain insights into the embodied experience and knowledge (Arnold, 2005) that they carry with them into pre‐service courses.

This particular degree program combines cognate discipline studies, concentrated in Years 1, 2 and partially in 3, with teacher education studies (Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Education; Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Education), concentrated in Years 3, 4 and 5. The majority of students gained entry into the degree through regular university admissions procedures, requiring that they had reached a minimum entry score based on their final post‐compulsory examination. The entry score for the Secondary Combined Degree program at Sydney University has remained steady at between 85 and 89 (out of a possible 100) between 2000 and 2005. Interestingly, 90% of this entire cohort of Year 3 pre‐service teachers had gained a matriculation result of 90 or higher, placing them in the top 10% of school leavers in New South Wales, indicating that teaching as a career choice appears to be attracting high‐calibre entrants if the matriculation results are considered to be a worthwhile measure of achievement.

In this sample of 79 pre‐service teachers, 78% were female, with 22% male. According to the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training (2003), the ratio of female to male teachers in Australia aged between 21 and 30 years is around 3:1. The ratio of female to male pre‐service teachers in the current research sample was higher than this national figure. Sixty‐five per cent of the sample was aged between 20 and 21 years at the time of the study. In other words, the majority of participants were directly school leavers, with the remaining 35% constituted by later‐entry candidates who had either deferred study for one or more years to work or to travel (18%); candidates who enrolled as mature‐entry students (9%); and those who had come to teaching after one or more other careers or other pathways of study (8%). According to a report by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (2002), the average national figure for pre‐service teachers who have come to teaching after one or more careers is 22%. Mature‐entry and career‐changers were underrepresented in this cohort, with the overwhelming majority of participants being recent school leavers. Mature‐entry and career‐changers tend to undertake end‐on, graduate‐entry teacher education programs, since most already hold an undergraduate degree.

The distribution of pre‐service teachers across curriculum areas has been represented as follows. In this ITE program, the majority of pre‐service teachers undertake study of at least two secondary curriculum methodology areas. Percentages of single and combined method areas are presented in Tables 1 and 2, respectively.

Table 1. Distribution of pre‐service teachers (single method)

Teaching Area (Single)	Tally	Percentage
History	42	53.2%
English	37	46.8%
TESOL (EFL)*	18	22.8%
Geography	11	14.0%
Languages	11	14.0%
Mathematics	10	12.6%
Science	10	12.6%
Economics	8	10.2%
Drama	3	3.8%
Visual Arts	2	2.5%
Religion	2	2.5%
Invalid	4	5.1%
Total	158	200%
* Teaching English as a Second or Other Language (English as a Foreign Language)

Table 2. Distribution of pre‐service teachers (combined method)

Teaching Areas (Combinations)	Tally	Percentage
English and History	25	31.6%
TESOL (EFL) and Languages	10	12.7%
Mathematics and/or Science	10	12.7%
History and Geography	7	8.8%
History and Economics	6	7.6%
English and TESOL (EFL)	6	7.6%
English and Geography	3	3.8%
History and TESOL (EFL)	2	2.5%
English and Economics	2	2.5%
English and Drama	1	1.3%
History and Drama	1	1.3%
Geography and Religion	1	1.3%
Visual Arts and Languages	1	1.3%
Visual Arts and History	1	1.3%
Drama and Religion	1	1.3%
Invalid	2	1.3%
Total	79	100.0%

The sample cohort was heavily humanities based, with a majority of students taking either History or English or both as their curriculum methodology subjects. Historically, the proportion of students entering humanities‐based curriculum areas within the Secondary Combined Degrees at the University of Sydney has been significantly greater by around 6:1 than the proportion of those entering the science and mathematics curriculum areas. The relative numbers across the curriculum areas have remained reasonably steady over the past five years. The ratios of students entering humanities‐based streams and science/mathematics‐based streams at Sydney University reflect a national trend in other Australian universities, with shortages noted in science, mathematics and technology enrolments in most Australian ITE programs (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, 2002).

The findings: questionnaire responses

1 What factors influenced your decision to become a teacher?

This initial question invited participants to identify one or more factors influencing their decision to undertake a teacher education course. The responses are given in Table 3 below.

Table 3. Factors influencing the decision to teach

Factor	Tally	Percentage
Personal fulfilment	56	70.9%
Enjoyment of subject	55	69.6%
Working with young people	52	65.8%
Lifestyle	27	34.2%
Working conditions	15	19.0%
Professional status	6	7.6%
Salary	2	2.5%
Power	1	1.3%
Other:
Help others/make a difference	4	5.1%
Influence of own teacher/s	3	3.8%
Family role models	3	3.8%
Holidays	2	2.5%
Intrinsic desire	1	1.3%
Enjoyed school	1	1.3%
Employment	1	1.3%
Use education elsewhere	1	1.3%
Good if you have children	1	1.3%

Three interdependent factors predominate here: intrinsic motivations bound up with a sense of the inner life, the self and the quest for fulfilment and purpose; a desire to sustain an engagement with their chosen subject(s); and the opportunity to work with young people as part of the broader social project of education. Many studies have explored the appeal of teaching for potential teacher education students, pre‐service teachers at the commencement, during and at the completion of their formal preparation, and practising teachers (see Snyder et al., 1995; Reid & Caudwell, 1997; Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000; Spear et al., 2000; Wadsworth, 2001; Hammond, 2002; Kyriacou et al., 2003; Manuel, 2003a; Priyadharshini & Robinson‐Pant, 2003; Ewing & Manuel, 2005). Consistently, these studies have reported intrinsic and altruistic reasons (Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000) as the principal motivations for the prospective teacher. Lortie’s (1975) landmark study of teachers conducted in the 1970s identified the interpersonal nature of teaching and the opportunity to maintain an engagement with the academic cognate disciplines, as fundamental reasons for choosing to teach.

In one sense, these findings are not surprising. Parker J. Palmer argued that teaching is, at its core, about identity, integrity and seeking connectedness; the call to teach emerges from the ‘inwardness’ of the self, or the ‘heart’, where intellect, emotion and spirit converge (Palmer, 1998, p. 5). The perennial, enduring appeal of teaching is therefore interpreted by some to be deeply anchored in aspects of the subjective inner landscape of the individual and his or her search for meaning through ideas, relationships and hope—which, taken together, are, arguably, fundamental to effective teaching and learning. Educational systems or schools can be considered as the crucible within which ‘travellers in the world of knowledge—pupils and teachers alike—seek meaning and significance for their joint stories’ (Carneiro, 2003, p. 14). Despite differences in time, place, and cultural and social conditions, and the postmodernist tendency to eschew continuities and grand narratives (Eagleton, 2003), this research, placed alongside that gathered over the past three or more decades, provides some weight to the notion of ‘teaching as a calling’ as a core motivation to teach; those entering the teaching profession often do so because of humanistic reasons predicated on the assumption that ‘educating to learn and learning to educate are intertwined journeys’ (Carneiro, 2003, p. 17).

These reasons have ‘social justice’ dimensions, tacit in statements made by participants such as ‘making a difference to children’s lives’ and ‘helping others’; and these factors may well be implicit in the predominant responses of ‘personal fulfilment’ and ‘working with young people’. Again, these results accord with the international research literature on teacher motivations that has been published over the past three decades and noted throughout this article. Indeed, in the late 1980s, a study by Howey and Zimpher in the United States reported that education majors who were choosing to teach were less concerned about material reward and job security than other college students (Howey & Zimpher, 1989), even though they articulated an awareness of the potentially negative aspects of the profession such as difficult working conditions, poor status and student discipline. Similar studies in the United Kingdom and the United States have reiterated these findings, reporting that the majority of students entering a teaching degree do so for ‘professionally sound rather than negative reasons’ (Reid & Caudwell, 1997, p. 47) and that working with young people, the desire to make a difference to children’s lives and society more broadly, a desire to maintain engagement with a subject area and an expectation of high levels of job satisfaction figure prominently as motivations to choose to teach (see Huberman, 1989; Reid & Caudwell, 1997; Boser, 2000; Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000; Spear et al., 2000; Hammond, 2002; Hunt & Carroll, 2003).

Salary did not figure in this research as a significant reason for choosing to teach. Other studies similarly indicate that salary is not an overriding factor in the initial decision to teach, but may well be an important factor for choosing not to undertake a teaching degree, or not to teach once qualified. Further, it may be the impetus for some to choose to resign from teaching after a period of time.

The expectancy‐value theory of motivation proposed in the work of Wigfield and Eccles (2000), and originally based on examining motivation and choice in relation to participating in school subjects, is another lens through which to consider student teachers’ choices. The expectancy‐value framework explores the links between the choice of career and the individual’s expectations of achievement and success; beliefs in ability; and the subjective value of the career. ‘Thinking you can teach, being told that you can teach and early positive experiences in teacher education and teaching are seen as powerful motivational forces in deciding to teach’ (Ewing & Manuel, 2005, p. 11) and sustaining that decision.

2 Was teaching your first career preference? Why/Why not?

We were interested in understanding more about the relationship between gender, age and motivations to teach, particularly in the light of arguments about the changing career expectations of the so‐called ‘Generation Y’. This generation consists of those born in the 1980s and is characterised variously as a generation of people who will apparently change jobs regularly, seek new challenges and fast promotions, and expect high levels of job satisfaction. Some research has argued that the nature of work has changed so dramatically that people entering the workforce now expect to change careers several times in their working lives. The questions about teaching as a first career preference, and expectations of the length of time to be spent teaching, were included as a means of gauging the extent to which this cohort perceived teaching as a short‐term or ‘drop‐in, drop‐out’ career, or whether the responses reflected the enduring motivations to teach that have since been identified in this research and other studies discussed above. The responses given in Table 4 provide data on the numbers of pre‐service teachers, by gender, who chose to teach as a first career preference, and those who did not. Table 5 provides data on career choice by age. In Table 6, the reasons participants gave for choosing teaching as a first career preference or not are given according to tally.

Table 4. Teaching as a first career preference by gender

	Female	Male	Total
By Gender	Tally	%	Tally	%	Tally	%
Yes	38	59.4%	7	46.7%	45	57.0%
No	26	40.6%	8	53.3%	34	43.0%
Total	64	100.0%	15	100.0%	79	100.0%

Table 5. Teaching as a first career preference by age

By age	19–21Tally	19–21%	22+Tally	22+%	TotalTally	Total%
Yes	35	64.8%	14	56.0%	49	57.0%
No	19	35.2%	11	44.0%	30	43.0%
Total	54	100.0%	25	100.0%	79	100.0%

Table 6. Was teaching your first career choice? Why/why not?

Yes—First Preference—Reason	Tally	No—Not First Preference—Reason	Tally
Dream/always wanted to be a teacher	14	Did not get into other option	6
Family includes teacher/s and natural abilities	8	Changed mind after starting something else	5
Idolised teachers at school	7	Family pressure	3
Liked it/interesting	7	Didn’t know yet/no clear career path	2
Like subjects	5	Have been working	2
Important role in society	5	Achieved a high University Admission Index/salary of other jobs	2
Help others to learn/rewarding	4	Teachers are uncool	1
Didn’t know what else to do	3
Working with youth	2
Compatible with being a mother	1
Total	56*	Total	21*
* Some respondents gave more than one reason and some respondents did not give a reason.

Interestingly, 57% of pre‐service teachers chose teaching as a first career preference, with a significant minority—43%—choosing teaching as a second or later career preference. This latter statistic may well be an indicator for retention patterns when it comes to completing the ITE, taking up a teaching appointment upon graduation and remaining in the profession. In terms of gender, the important point to note is that the percentage of males who chose teaching as a second or later career preference is greater than the percentage who chose teaching as a first career preference, with the latter group constituted by a majority of 19–21 year‐olds, and the former group made up of participants aged 22 years or older. When it comes to age, a larger proportion of female school leavers (19–21 years) chose teaching as a first career preference, over older females, and males in both age brackets.

Qualitative responses were also gathered from participants in order to ascertain the reasons underlying their choice. These reasons are given in Table 6.

If we consider the reasons why participants chose to teach as a first career preference, there is strong resonance with the responses given to other questions in this questionnaire about motivations and factors influencing the decision to teach. The desire to teach is driven by intrasubjective factors: comments such as ‘to fulfil a dream’ figure prominently here, as do intersubjective forces such as the influence of family and inspirational teachers. For those who did not rate teaching as a first choice, there is a ‘default’ factor evident, with a number of participants electing to enter an ITE program because they did not gain entry into their preferred course. These participants entered ITE as a second‐best career. Almost as many participants—6%—entered teaching after trying another course that they had originally preferred, but had since opted out of in favour of teaching. A handful of participants embarked upon teaching because of family pressure, a lack of clarity about a career or with a poor perception of teachers in general, all of which are negative reasons upon which to base the decision to enter teaching, and may indeed be crucial variables in later patterns of retention and attrition.

3 If teaching was not your first career preference, or first career, what was?

For 43% of this sample, teaching was not a first career preference or first career. Table 7 provides data on the first preferences and first careers of this group, and Table 8 provides an overview of broad career groupings.

Table 7. First career preferences and first careers

Career	Female	Male	Other	Tally
Administration/Business (B)	4	0	0	4
Law (P)	2	0	1	3
Music (C)	2	0	1	3
Politics/Foreign Affairs (P)	3	0	0	3
Army/Defence (PS)	1	1	0	2
Medicine (H)	1	0	0	1
Retail (B)	1	0	0	1
Pharmacy (H)	1	0	0	1
Human Resources (O)	1	0	0	1
Journalism (O)	1	0	0	1
Information Technology (O)	1	0	0	1
Social Work (H)	1	0	0	1
Parenthood (O)	1	0	0	1
Archaeology (O)	1	0	0	1
Physiotherapy (H)	1	0	0	1
Swimming Teacher (B)	1	0	0	1
Acting (C)	1	0	0	1
Design (C)	0	0	1	1
Engineering (O)	0	1	0	1
Psychology (H)	0	1	0	1
Police/Firefighting (PS)	0	1	0	1
Invalid	2	1	0	3
Total	26	5	3	34

Table 8. Career groupings

Career Groupings	Tally	Percentage
Business related (B)	7	20.6%
Politics and Law (P)	6	17.6%
Creative Arts (C)	5	14.7%
Health related (H)	5	14.7%
Other (O)	5	14.7%
Public Service (PS)	3	8.8%
Invalid	3	8.8%
Total	34	100.0%

While it is difficult to generalise about the pathways into teaching for those who have chosen it as a second or later career or career preference, it is interesting to note the diversity of occupations identified here and the nature of those occupations: the majority are, like teaching, professions or careers that require relatively high levels of commitment, training and experience for success. A significant number are also occupations that rely on interpersonal, service, relational and creative qualities, all of which are considered to be central to teaching. Around 20% of this group of participants entered ITE from business‐related backgrounds, suggesting the importance of altruistic motivations over extrinsic ones for this group.

4 Has there been (or is there) a significant mentor/teacher who influenced your decision to become a teacher?

A number of studies on motivations of prospective teachers have identified the role of a ‘significant other’ as a persuasive force in the decision to teach. Reid and Caudwell, for example, questioned a group of 453 Postgraduate Certificate in Education students in the United Kingdom. Twenty‐two per cent of the sample reported that they had been inspired by their former teacher(s) to pursue teaching as a career (Reid & Caudwell, 1997). We were keen to identify the extent to which the participants in this study were swayed by their own embodied experience of teachers as personal role models. The results are given in Table 9 below.

Table 9. A significant teacher or mentor

By Gender	Female	Male	Other	Total
Yes	45 (72.6%)	9 (75%)	4 (80.0%)	58 (73.4%)
No	12 (19.4)	1 (8.3%)	1 (20.0%)	14 (17.7%)
Invalid	5 (8.1%)	2 (16.7%)	0 (0.0%)	7 (8.9%)
Total	62 (100.0%)	12 (100.0%)	5 (100.0%)	79 (100.0%)

More than 73% of this sample agreed that there is, or has been, a significant teacher or mentor who influenced the decision to become a teacher. This is a powerful affirmation of the generative capacity of the profession to act to good effect (Boomer & Torr, 1987) and once again underlines the intensely interpersonal and relational nature of teaching: a strong majority of this sample was persuaded to become teachers because of a relationship with a current or previous role model. Reflecting on the central place of the mentor in the ‘ancient and exacting exchange called education’ (Palmer, 1998, p. 10), Palmer believes that:

The power of our mentors is not necessarily in the models of good teaching they gave us, models that may turn out to have little to do with who we are as teachers. Their power is in their capacity to awaken a truth within us, a truth we can reclaim years later by recalling their impact on our lives…mentors and apprentices are partners in an ancient human dance…it is the dance of the spiralling generations, in which the old empower the young with their experience and the young empower the old with new life, reweaving the fabric of the human community as they touch and turn. (Palmer, 1998, pp. 21, 25)

A majority of pre‐service teachers in this sample have carried with them an internalised assumption about teaching as a ‘cycle of influence’ (Manuel, 2003a). The relational, community‐building and meaning‐making nature of teaching is not only about forging connections between teachers and students, but also about empowering connections between the accomplished teacher and the new teacher. This vision of teaching embodies deep‐seated notions of legacy, inheritance and rites of passage that pre‐service teachers may indeed expect when they begin their career. Whether or not this expectation is met may, in turn, have far‐reaching consequences for the retention of the new teacher if appropriate support structures and strategies are inadequate or absent during the ‘apprenticeship’ phase of the career. Research has clearly demonstrated that new teachers who do not experience adequate induction into the profession are three times more likely to resign within the first three years of employment compared to those who do experience effective induction (Boser, 2000). Adequate induction presumes a systematic, sustained and structured experience whereby the newly appointed teacher has formal and informal mentors; regular opportunities for reflection and discussion; and planned professional development experiences that are maintained beyond merely the first month, semester or year of appointment.

The nature and form of induction, however, also point to a paradox at the heart of teaching that this new generation of teachers confronts. On the one hand, teaching is arguably driven by priorities such as the quest for human betterment; the task of making sense of and interpreting experience; the need to understand the self and others; and the desire to create meaning. Teachers are both the preservers of past wisdom, history and memory, valuing the universal role of education in human affairs; yet they are also active agents for change, innovation and new ways of being and knowing in an ever‐changing and unstable world. Bullough contends that schools function on the basis of a ‘modern’ culture that is fixed and resistant in its structures and procedures, while the culture outside the school is ‘post‐modern’, characterised by change, diversity, complexity and insecurity (Bullough, 1997). For the new teacher, induction into such a school context raises a host of complex questions about exactly what they are being inducted into. For some, or many, teachers this ‘clash’ of the two cultures may well lead to early career teacher drop‐out.

5 What do you consider to be the attributes of an effective teacher? What quality, above all others, will you bring to the teaching profession?

Linked to the question of a significant other, and in seeking to understand more about student teachers’ perceptions of teaching, the questionnaire asked participants to identify what they consider to be the characteristics that distinguish effective teachers. We were interested to gain insights into what attributes of ‘the good teacher’ the student teachers had embodied and assimilated into their world view. Participants were then asked to identify one quality, above all others, that they would bring to the teaching profession. This question was also designed to gather insights about the extent to which these prospective teachers saw themselves as possessing the qualities of the ‘effective’ teacher that they had identified in the previous question: to what extent had these pre‐service teachers already ‘imagined the self’ as the effective teacher. These were open‐ended questions and drew the following extensive list of attributes and qualities, set out in Table 10 and Table 11, respectively.

Table 10. Attributes of an effective teacher

Attributes*	Percentage
Communication/listening skills	30.4%
Loving/caring/kind/supportive/genuine	30.4%
Passionate/motivated	26.6%
Interpersonal skills/relational skills/able to relate to young people	25.3%
Knowledgeable and intelligent	21.5%
Understanding/approachable	21.5%
Fun/enthusiastic/sense of humour	21.5%
Patient/calm	15.2%
Respectful of others	12.7%
Time management	11.4%
Honest	7.6%
Organised/prepared	7.6%
Hard‐working/dedicated/giving of self	6.3%
Flexible/versatile	6.3%
Creative/innovative	6.3%
Good role model/set example	3.8%
Aware of student needs	3.8%
Assertive	2.6%
Open‐minded	2.6%
Diplomatic/fair	2.6%
Responsible	1.3%
Don’t know	1.3%
* A total of 203 attributes were identified by 78 respondents.

Table 11. One quality you will bring to the teaching profession

Quality Groupings*	Percentage
Love/care/service/help/understanding/respect/patience	27.8%
Enthusiasm/motivation/inspiration/passion	15.2%
Humour/fun/happiness	10.1%
Commitment/willing to learn	7.8%
Creativity/innovation/flexibility/proactive skills	6.5%
Knowledge/life experience	5.1%
Integrity/honesty	3.8%
Other (good communicator, extra‐curricular talents, being sensible, empowering students)	6.5%
Invalid	17.7%
Total	100.0%
* Qualities have been grouped.

Participants responded with a comprehensive list of the kinds of qualities and attributes that would align with international documents that set out what may be called the touchstone characteristics of the effective teacher (see Brock, 2000). The responses to both of these questions suggest that participants’ perceptions of the effective teacher are generated from an embodied concept of the teacher as a loving, knowledgeable, committed, engaging and giving person of integrity and creative flair. Importantly, the attributes of an effective teacher closely parallel the qualities that participants thought they would bring with them into the teaching profession. The responses are dominated by the relational, ethical, emotional, empathic and spiritual dimensions of teaching.

In 1996, the Report to UNESCO of the International Commission of Education for the Twenty‐first Century, Learning: The Treasure Within, identified the four pillars of learning: Learning to Be; Learning to Know; Learning to Do; and Learning to Live Together (Delores et al., 1996). These ‘pillars’ are evident in the participants’ responses to the question of teacher attributes and qualities. What is valued here are the humanistic aspects of teachers’ work, the personal and social development dimensions of education; the capacity for connecting, relating and building understanding through ‘communication’, ‘caring’ and interacting with young people; and the role of knowledge and understanding.

It is interesting to note the lack of emphasis in the participants’ responses on the technique or method of teaching, or qualities that could be associated with the ‘how and what’ of teaching and learning. Instead, there is a clear emphasis on qualities that emanate from the ‘who’ of teaching—the ‘self’ of the teacher—which, once again, accords with the responses to earlier questions about motivations to teach.

6 Major expectations of teaching as a career

The bulk of respondents in this research fell into the age group defined as ‘Generation Y’ so our research with the cohort of ITE students sought to understand more fully the expectations of the group in terms of both personal fulfilment and predicted length of employment as a teacher. We were keen to discover if this group had entered ITE with an image of teaching as a shorter‐term or a longer‐term career, or as a stepping‐stone for other related and non‐related work.

We asked the participants to identify their major expectations of teaching as a career and whether they saw themselves teaching in 10 years’ time. The responses were as follows in Table 12 and Table 13.

Table 12. Expectations of teaching as a career (respondents could identify more than one expectation)

Expectation	FemaleTally/Percentage	MaleTally/Percentage	OtherTally/Percentage	TotalTally/Percentage
Challenging and rewarding	53 (85.5%)	7 (58%)	4 (80.0%)	64 (81.0%)
Fulfilling	35 (56.5%)	7 (58%)	1 (20.0%)	43 (54.4%)
Long‐term career	26 (41.9%)	5 (41.7%)	3 (60.0%)	34 (43.0%)
Short‐term career	7 (11.3%)	2 (16.7%)	0 (0.0%)	9 (11.4%)
Difficult	7 (11.3%)	0 (0.0%)	1 (20.0%)	8 (10.1%)
Other*	5 (8.1%)	2 (16.7%)	0 (0.0%)	7 (8.9%)
Total	133	23	9	165
* ‘Other’ included travel, mission, constant change, leadership, be a good teacher.

Table 13. Can you see yourself teaching 10 years from now?

Expectation	FemaleTally/Percentage	MaleTally/Percentage	OtherTally/Percentage	TotalTally/Percentage
Yes#	43 (69.3%)	9 (75%)	3 (60%)	55 (69.6%)
No	7 (11.3%)	0 (0.0%)	0 (0.0%)	7 (8.9%)
Other*	12 (19.4%)	3 (25%)	2 (40.0%)	17 (21.5%)
Total	62 (100.0%)	12 (100.0%)	5 (100.0%)	79 (100.0%)
# ‘Yes’ included responses such as ‘probably’, ‘hope so’.* ‘Other’ included responses such as ‘don’t know’, ‘not sure’, ‘maybe’, ‘depends’, ‘perhaps’.

An overwhelming majority—more than 80%—of this sample expected teaching to be a ‘challenging and rewarding’ career. A little more than half of the females and males believed that teaching would be ‘fulfilling’. This figure closely relates to the percentage that considers teaching as a longer‐term career, suggesting that a longer‐term career and fulfilment may be co‐extensive factors.

Interestingly, in response to the next question, a majority of both female and male participants predict that they will be teaching in 10 years’ time. This is an intriguing result, given that 43% of the participants did not choose teaching as a first career or career preference. There is also a discrepancy between responses to this question and responses to the preceding question about a long‐term or short‐term career. This may be explained by varying interpretations of ‘longer‐term’ and ‘short‐term’ and also by the percentage of ‘other’ responses which were qualifying a yes/no answer.

Given the average age of the cohort, this result indicates that more than two‐thirds of the sample see themselves teaching at age 30. While such a questions is of course hypothetical—and the percentage of participants whose responses included ‘not sure’, ‘perhaps’, ‘maybe’ and ‘depends’ attests to the difficulty of the question for some—the responses do suggest that the bulk of this sample do not consider teaching at this stage of their ITE program to be a short‐term or ‘drop‐in, drop‐out’ occupation. Such a view resonates with the earlier, qualitative responses to motivations for teaching: an emphasis on intrinsic reasons for choosing to teach correlates with the idea of a sustained and extended personal commitment to the profession. The data from this sample tend to counter the argument that teaching is now increasingly perceived as a short‐term, revolving‐door job. Importantly, this sample was in Year 3 of a five‐year, full‐time specialist teaching degree which entails a substantial commitment of the self, through time, and material, intellectual, emotional and spiritual resources. It is worth speculating that for this cohort, completing five years of professional preparation to work in that profession for a short period of time seems to be an enormous outlay for little return, although a number of graduates may take up positions in related areas for which the teaching degree qualifies them.

Conclusion

It has always been my dream to teach… (Pre‐service teacher, 2002)

Participants in this study chose to embark on a journey to become a teacher for three fundamental reasons: the quest for personal fulfilment; the desire to work with young people to make a difference in their lives; and the opportunity to continue a meaningful engagement with the subject of their choice. There is a strong melding here of personal aspiration; spiritual endeavour; social mission; intellectual pursuit; the desire for connectedness; and a belief in the power of ideas and relationships manifested in education to alter the conditions of their own and others’ lives for the better. For a group of participants with the average age of 21 years, such ideals, idealism, forward thinking and optimism is worth celebrating. It is also a reflection on the effectiveness of their own education experience, that so many identified the transformative power of education and wished to become a part of that through teaching. Roslyn Arnold (2005) defines and elaborates these understandings in her notion of empathic intelligence:

As educators in classroom…around the world face their students day after day…there is the potential for a transformative experience to occur. Such an experience will be long remembered and cherished because it affected an important development in the psychic life of the student, and possibly the teacher. (Arnold, 2005, pp. 17, 18)

The desire to be agents of change emerged strongly in the responses, with a substantial majority—more than 73% of the sample—noting that they were influenced in their decision to teach by a significant teacher or mentor. Most expected teaching to be a challenging and rewarding career, and almost 70% expected to be teaching in 10 years from now.

The implications of this study for teacher satisfaction, teacher retention and teacher attrition are worth considering. Firstly, if teachers enter the profession to maintain engagement with the subject area or areas of their choice, then it is a serious concern that a significant minority of secondary school teachers in New South Wales, and across Australia, are teaching ‘out of their specialisation’. Palmer (1998) argues that the subjects we teach are integral to who we are as teachers: teacher identity and the sense of self—the ‘who’ of teaching—is organically related to the ‘what and how’ of teaching. Being disconnected from this essential component of identity as a teacher may well lead to levels of dissatisfaction and versions of disillusionment that prompt early career teachers to question their decision to teach.

Secondly, many Australian models of professional development and teacher induction tend to emphasise the practical skills and the techniques of teaching, inducting new teachers into the dominant culture and bureaucracy of the profession, with little, if any, attention given to the moral, spiritual, emotional, empathic and subjective dimensions of the teacher’s life and work. The latter tend to remain invisible, or at least undervalued in teacher support materials and programs. Yet, an overwhelming majority of participants in this study, and many other studies recorded in the research literature over the past three decades, chose to teach on the basis of intrinsic reasons, bound up in the personal, subjective desires and aspirations of the individual. In considering teacher satisfaction and growing rates of early career teacher attrition, it may be worth promoting ways in which teachers can be validated and supported in nurturing, sharing and building upon these ‘empathic intelligence’ (Arnold, 2005) dimensions of their work.

Importantly, many prospective teachers enter teaching with a sense of mission: to transform the lives of young people and open opportunities for growth through learning and connecting. As robust as this altruistic vision seems to be at the ITE stage of teacher development, it is susceptible to being whittled away under the weight of unreasonable and unmanageable workloads in the initial phases of appointment; burgeoning administrative requirements; school culture and leadership that marginalises rather than embraces new teachers’ voices; little choice for the new teacher in what school they are appointed to; deficit models of teaching and learning that may prevail in some schools; and a lack of sustained professional support during the early years. The implications of a poorly managed start to a teacher’s working life can be monumental when it comes to the longer‐term resilience and commitment of the individual within the profession.

Effective support programs, such as, for instance, the New South Wales Department of Education and Training’s ‘Teacher Mentor Program’, have been demonstrably successful in addressing some of these issues of new teacher support and induction, particularly in schools where there are high numbers of early career teachers. This program includes the appointment of dedicated teacher‐mentors to 90 schools across the State with significant patterns of new teacher appointments. (The total number of new teacher appointments in New South Wales is approximately 2300 per year.) In 2005, the percentage of new teachers supported by this program increased from around 20% (during 2003–2004) to around 60%, with a budget allocation of AU$5.12 million (New South Wales Department of Education and Training, 2005).

Along with such programs of new teacher support, we also require more qualitative longitudinal studies which record the experience of teachers—such as those in the current research—through the early years of teaching to determine the links between expectations in ITE, experiences of teaching and decisions about career progress. Considering the intention of a significant majority of the participants in this study to be teaching in 10 years’ time, such research is vital. The results of the present study suggest that teaching is still a profession that is considered by many entering ITE as a longer‐term vocation rather than a ‘drop‐in, drop‐out’ or revolving‐door job.

Finally, one of the experiences common to those called to teach is the influence of a former or current teacher or mentor. Teaching and learning, at its core, is about relationships and connections—between teachers and students; accomplished teachers and new teachers; schools and communities; hopes and their realisation; and aspirations and their fulfilment. It is encumbant upon teacher educators, experienced teachers, the teaching profession more broadly, parents and employers not only to understand the centrality of such relationships to new teachers’ motivations and expectations, but also to create legitimate cultural and intellectual space, in policy and practice, for the voices and visions of these new teachers to flourish. In so doing, new teachers may indeed be sustained over the longer term in their ‘dream to teach’.