Why choose to become a teacher in China? A large-sample study using the Factors Influencing Teaching Choice scale

ABSTRACT

China’s education system faces a loss of teachers and a decline in education quality, and the new fertility policy means that the demand for teachers will increase. Against this background, the motivations and perceptions of pre-service teachers (N= 2618) were investigated. The Factors Influencing Teaching Choice instrument was used, and its construct validity and reliability were assessed. The results indicate that social altruism motivation was the most influential, in contrast with the high ratings of perceived teaching ability and intrinsic value motivations in Western studies. Prior teaching and learning experience came next, highlighting the prominence of the practices of teacher education programmes. Female pre-service teachers reported significantly higher motivations from intrinsic career value and shaping the future of children/adolescents and fewer fallback-career motivations. With increasing college year, the study found significantly higher values for perception of high task demand. Social utility values and expert career were scored higher by rural pre-service teachers than by urban ones. It is argued that policy makers, politicians and others who care about improving students’ intrinsic career value should enable pre-service teachers to undergo a longer internship time and targeted learning guidance.

KEYWORDS:

• FIT-Choice scale
• teacher motivation
• pre-service teacher
• China
• teaching choice

Disclosure statement

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

Ethics statement included in body of manuscript (if relevant)

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Ethics Committee of East China Normal University. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The National Social Science Fund of Chinese government [grant number 21CKS007].

Notes on contributors

Weiwei Shang

Weiwei Shang is a lecturer with the School of Marxism at East China Normal University. Her research focuses on teacher education and moral education.

Tianzuo Yu

Tianzuo Yu is an Assistant Professor with the School of Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research focuses on teacher education and engineering education.

Ji Wang

Ji Wang is a a lecturer with School of Humanities at Shandong Agriculture And Engineering University. His research interests focuses on teacher management.

Di Sun

Di Sun is an Associate Professor of Graduate School of Education at Dalian University of Technology. Her research focuses on educational big data and learning analytics.

Jiming Su

Jiming Su is a Professor with the School of Marxism at East China Normal University. His research focuses on educational ecology.