The reasons students choose teaching professions

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to present the reasons students at the Faculty of Education in Maribor, Slovenija, chose pedagogy for their study direction, and therefore becoming a teacher. A total 237 second‐year students of the academic year 2003/04 were included in the research. Of the five groups of reasons for choosing this program (altruistic, material, self‐realization and alternative, and reasons arising from aspiration stereotype), students most often asserted self‐realization, including: teaching provides a useful public function for the whole society; as a teacher, I can be an example to children and young people; this profession will give me a chance for professional development during my whole career; and teaching will enable me to use all my abilities (and talents—for example, music, verbal, dancing, etc.) Important differences were found to exist between students of different disciplines.

Keywords:

• Choice of profession
• Motivational reasons for choice of study
• Teaching profession

Notes

1. Students’ opinions will be quoted throughout the article. Students recorded their opinions in the form of answers to open questions in a written poll questionnaire and they are presented here.

2. Because there are no statistically significant differences between female and male students, we will treat both groups as a unit in the continuation of this article.