Why choose a career in teaching? Exploring motivational factors that influence the decision to teach

ABSTRACT

This paper reports the findings on motivational factors influencing teaching as a career choice from a qualitative study carried out in Scotland. Ten students undertaking a PGDE (Professional Graduate Diploma in Education) programme at one Scottish university were interviewed. The results indicate that the choice of a teaching career derived from the students’ internal needs for personal achievement and from an altruistic dimension pertaining to helping and influencing young people. For some students, negative educational experiences played an important part in shaping their altruistic sense of offering the next generation an enjoyable school experience. Perceived intrinsic rewards of teaching appeared to deter and counteract negative thoughts or remarks about teachers’ workload, salary and status.

KEYWORDS:

• Teaching choice
• teaching profession
• teacher education
• career decision-making
• pre-service teaching

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wenting Wang

Dr Wenting Wang obtained her PhD from the University of Glasgow, UK. She is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the South China Normal University and the Educational Science Research Institute of Shenzhen, China. Her major research interests lie in the areas of teacher education, with a particular focus on research which contributes to teachers’ motivations, perceptions, professional learning and career development.

Ziyou Wang

Dr. Ziyou Wang is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Psychology, South China Normal University, China. Her research interests relate to teacher education, and policy responses and enactment.