While teacher education programs have long studied what draws students to choose a career in teaching, a less studied aspect of teacher candidates relates to students who change majors to become teachers. As a phenomenon that is common in teacher preparation, I am interested in better understanding why this happens. This article centers around six…

This study aims to fill a gap in our understanding of the relationship between two major topics in educational research: higher education choices and students' conceptions of employability. It explores, first, the balance between vocational calling, instrumental considerations and chance in subject choice and, second, the relation between…

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) aims to improve its education sector by recruiting qualified and diverse student teachers. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the factors affecting student motivation to enroll in colleges of education. Using simple random sampling, a total of 199 consenting students were recruited to participate in this…

Questionnaires from undergraduate students with a declared major in special education showed 41 percent had at least one handicapped individual in their family background. Perceptions of special education were influenced by academic rank, academic concentration, and personal experiences with the handicapped. (Author)

Factors that influenced 157 students at Pennsylvania State University (PSU) and 176 at the University of Cyprus to become teachers were compared. The factor "internal motives" was the strongest factor that influenced students from PSU, whereas the most influential factors for students from Cyprus were "variety of benefits" and…

Identifies and compares the factors that have motivated 176 third-and fourth-year students at the University of Cyprus to choose the elementary school teaching profession. Six factors accounted for 63.3% of the variance: (1) internal motives; (2) job benefits; (3) status of the profession; (4) relatives' influence; (5) external motives; and (6)…

The Early Bird Internship Program in Teacher Education at Union University was developed to give the sophomore student a general field orientation to the whole school program prior to the senior student teaching program. In partial fulfillment of the requirements for a beginning course for all prospective teachers taken near the end of the…

Examined perceptions of psychic and economic rewards for different occupations, perceptions of psychic and economic costs of preparation and perceived availability of jobs for college majors in business, education, and psychology. Found that different majors have quite similar perceptions despite major differences in occupational choices.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal-Form S was a reliable and valid instrument to measure critical thinking for students pursuing a teacher career. The participants were 137 students enrolled in Educational Psychology. The data showed that the alpha for the total WGTA-FS was 0.76 and…

This paper describes a program, developed and instituted in the College of Education at Arizona State University, for entry-level education students which helps them assess themselves and their commitment, strengths, and needs related to teaching as a career. The self-assessment program contains several components including an…

The population for this study of specific attractions to teaching was defined as the students enrolled in the primary-junior and intermediate-senior consecutive teacher education programs at an Ontario Faculty of Education. Respondents were required to rate the importance of 15 desirable opportunities offered by teaching and were also asked to…

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…

Major objectives of a 1-trimester research training project were (1) to introduce outstanding undergraduates in the behavioral and social sciences to educational research and (2) to introduce outstanding undergraduates currently preparing for the teaching profession to the field of educational research as a possible future career. Approximately…

A 36-week pilot training program for 20 outstanding undergraduates in education and in the behavioral and social sciences was conducted in 1966. It was designed to assist students (1) to develop basic competencies in measurement techniques and statistical research designs appropriate to educational research, (2) to engage in individual study in…

Beginning teacher education students in two colleges and three universities were asked to describe their knowledge and perceptions of teaching and schools in the following areas: (1) the quality of K-12 schools; (2) characteristics of good and poor schools; (3) levels of school funding; (4) the quality of K-12 teachers; (5) characteristics of K-12…