Students (98) choosing careers in special education-behavior disorders or elementary education were given standardized tests to attempt to identify personality traits presented by good special education teachers of the behaviorally disordered. Subtests on teaching humanities and counseling/guidance of young people showed higher means for special…

Exploratory study examined undergraduate recruitment among 55 students entering various majors. Participants completed a questionnaire on demographics and background which compared teacher education recruits with other majors. Most teacher education recruits viewed learning as the primary purpose of school physical education programs, accepting…

Compared academic proficiency levels of high school seniors indicating intention to major in education and seniors intending to major in other areas. Data from the 1992 National Educational Longitudinal Study indicated that seniors choosing education had similar academic abilities to students choosing all other areas. Gender, race, and…

This study sought to determine the effects of early field experience on the attitudes of elementary preservice teachers toward the career of teaching and the teaching environment of the elementary school. Participants in the study were 95 elementary teacher education students enrolled in an internship program at the University of South Florida in…

Research studies on the academic ability of individuals recruited into teacher education have produced mixed findings; some studies have found that academically talented teachers tend to leave the classroom in greater numbers than less academically capable colleagues, while other findings have indicated that teaching attracts and retains those…

Schools of education, reacting to the demands for more teachers in the 1960s, increased recruitment activities and in many cases lowered admission standards. The result has been a decade-long condition of severe teacher surplus, declining career mobility for teachers and faculty, and an eroding wage base for educators. These conditions have…

This program is based on the recognized need to provide preservice teacher education majors with an opportunity to actively participate in the public school classroom. The program is designed to provide the student with classroom experiences that will assist in deciding if they seriously desire to be teachers, to develop perception of the role and…

Surveyed education majors (N=42) to determine what influenced their career choice. Found courses on practicum experiences in college were not significant factors for most students. Most cited their own elementary and secondary experiences as students, as well as other experiences outside the teacher education program. (Author/JAC)

The effects of 15 factors on 81 students' selection of concentration areas in special education were investigated. Six factors were consistently rated high regardless of year and concentration area: ages served, prior work and volunteer experience, curriculum content, site visits provided prior to concentration area selection, job availability,…

Many studies of the reasons people select teaching as a career have used quantitative instruments featuring a checklist of reasons one might enter teaching to which subjects respond using a checklist or a continuously scaled Likert format. In this study, results of an effort to establish the construct validity of such an instrument are reported. A…

A four-semester undergraduate program in educational research was developed to provide training for those interested in specializing in the field and to provide a general knowledge of educational research for prospective teachers. Thirty students were selected for the first pilot group on the basis of academic ability and interest in research.…

This study sought to identify factors that motivated students at Pennsylvania State University and the University of Cyprus to major in elementary education and to compare the high school scholastic ability of these two groups of students. Questionnaires were completed by 157 randomly selected male and female Pennsylvania State University and 176…

Business and distributive education teacher candidates nationwide were tested in order to gauge the impact of vocational choice and stability upon their academic achievement and satisfaction. Both vocational choice and stability were found to be significant predictors. However, the relationships found were not identical for the two study groups.…

To study gender and cohort differences, surveys of male and female preservice elementary and preschool teacher education majors (N=326) examined vocational choice, factors influencing their decision, comfort with that decision, and professional aspirations. Results indicated that males and females were similar in their reasons for selecting…

An innovative field-based teacher education program was planned and implemented by the Georgia College School of Education and the Bibb County (Georgia) School System. A program goal was to establish a research base demonstrating that field-based models support teacher preparation better than do on-campus models. A study was conducted to describe…