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Teacher Development
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'It has always been my dream': exploring pre-service teachers' motivations
for choosing to teach
Jackie Manuel
a
; John Hughes
a
a
University of Sydney, Australia
To cite this Article Manuel, Jackie and Hughes, John(2006) ''It has always been my dream': exploring pre-service teachers'
motivations for choosing to teach', Teacher Development, 10: 1, 5 24
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13664530600587311
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530600587311
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Teacher Development
Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2006, pp. 524
ISSN 1366-4530 (print)/ISSN 1747-5120 (online)/06/01000520
2006 Teacher Development
DOI: 10.1080/13664530600587311
It has always been my dream:
exploring pre-service teachers
motivations for choosing to teach
Jackie Manuel* and John Hughes
University of Sydney, Australia
Taylor and Francis Ltd RTDE_A_158714.sgm 10.1080/13664530600587311 Teacher Development 1366-4530 (print)/1747-5120 (online) Original Article 2006 Taylor & Francis 10 1000000March 2006 JackieManuel jvmanuel@optusnet.com.au
This article reports on an investigation into the motivations of a cohort of pre-service teacher
education students, undertaking a five-year, full-time combined undergraduate and initial teacher
education degree program at the University of Sydney, Australia. Participants completed an exten-
sive questionnaire which sought to gather data on the characteristics of the cohort; the factors that
influenced their decision to undertake a teaching degree; their educational and work backgrounds;
their perceptions of teaching, teachers and students; their expectations of teaching as a career; and
their professional goals. The study found that a majority of participants made the decision to teach
based on reasons that reflect personal aspirations to work with young people to make a difference
in their lives; to maintain a meaningful engagement with the subject area they were drawn to; and
to attain personal fulfilment and meaning. The study found that more than two-thirds of the sample
intended teaching for at least 10 years after being appointed. The article explores the implications
of the findings for early career teacher satisfaction, teacher retention and early career teacher attrition.
Introduction
A striking feature in both the government and non-government sectors across the country
are strategies to promote teaching as a career and assist teacher recruitmentAttracting
people to the profession is not believed to be the problem it was five years ago, due to active
intervention by jurisdictions. (Skilbeck & Connell, 2003, pp. 30, 32).
In response to a range of teacher recruitment campaigns across Australia in recent
years there has been a wave of interest in teaching as a career for school leavers,
graduates and so-called career-changers. Recruitment initiatives in the States and
territories have included appealing media campaigns and marketing drives, finan-
cial incentives by way of scholarships and, in New South Wales, for example, the
establishment of the teach.NSW web site and a dedicated recruitment shopfront
*Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Email: j.manuel@edfac.usyd.edu.au
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6 J. Manuel
and telephone advice-line that saw more than 19,000 inquiries in its first year of
operation (2002). Of these inquiries, there were twice as many females as males;
7000 were from people contemplating changing careers to teach; and 1800 were
from overseas trained teachers seeking employment advice (Kennedy, 2003). At
the same time, Australian universities have witnessed a growing demand for places
in teacher education courses with a rise in university entry scores for those courses.
Despite these pleasing trends, reports in Australia, and internationally, indicate
that teacher recruitment continues to demand active policy intervention in many
countries, particularly when it comes to certain curriculum areas and staffing of so-
called hard-to-staff schools (Cochran-Smith, 2004).
An equally pressing and arguably more complex issue is the increasing rate of early
career teacher attrition that research now points to as the critical factor in the teacher
demand and supply equation (see Gold, 1996; Goddard & Foster, 2001; McGaw,
2002; OECD, 2002a; OECD, 2002b; Hunt & Carroll, 2003; Skilbeck & Connell,
2003; Smithers & Robinson, 2003; Manuel, 2003b; Ingersoll, 2004; Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development, 2005). The phenomenon of large-scale
early career teacher attrition has serious implications for the future of the teaching
profession; not merely in terms of supplying well-equipped teachers for every class-
room, but also in terms of building the cultural and intellectual capital of the profes-
sion. There is also the danger of de-professionalisation through the recruitment of
fast-tracked, accelerated or underqualified entrants. Such is the gravity of apparent
wastage in the early career phase that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (2005) recently completed a major, international study of teacher
retention and attrition to in part identify and address the significant challenges to the
quality of education brought about by high rates of teacher turnover.
The present study
In the light of this broader context of teacher recruitment, retention and attrition, the
present study investigated the motivations of a cohort of pre-service teacher educa-
tion students, undertaking a five-year, full-time combined undergraduate and initial
teacher education (ITE) degree program at the University of Sydney, Australia. The
cohort consisted of 79 participants specialising in secondary school teaching, across
a range of curriculum areas. The investigation sought to gather data on the character-
istics of the cohort: their educational and work backgrounds; the factors that influ-
enced their decision to teach; their perceptions of teaching, teachers and students;
their plans for employment upon graduation; their expectations of teaching as a
career; and their professional goals. The research also sought to disseminate the
voices and views of some of these potential next generation of teachers to the wider
profession, policy-makers, employers and teacher educators.
In response to teacher supply and demand in Australia, Dinham recently
commented that:
The surge in popularity of teaching might seem strange at a time when teacher status is
low and teacher unions and employers are at loggerheads over salaries and conditions.
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Pre-service teachers motivations for choosing to teach 7
While recent reports such as those by Vinson and Dinham and Scott have painted a picture
of teachers and schools under pressure as they attempt to address the unreasonable
expectations society has placed upon them, theres also a wave of altruism influencing
young and not-so-young new teachers to take on the challenges of the profession.
(Dinham, 2004, p. 2)
This is an intriguing phenomenon, given that teaching is a profession that demands
highly attuned interpersonal capacities coupled with profound levels of personal
commitment to the common weal (Ralston Saul, 1992) in a sociopolitical context
that often appears at worst to demonise, and at best to undervalue or misrepresent,
the social justice dimensions of teachers work. Added to this, the profession faces a
seemingly relentless ideological campaign from some sections of the media and
conservative politics that has been manifested in a growing push to undermine
teacher professionalism; impose standardised testing and use the results of this to
justify the withdrawal of support from public education; and codify the curriculum
according to narrowly conceived views of education, teaching, learning and knowl-
edge. Set against this, a teachers work is undertaken with relatively modest material
recompense, with intrinsic rewards that are often elusive or intangible and may not
be enough to sustain some teachers over an extended period of time.
What then, are the forces motivating these young and not-so-young people to
choose to teach, and do their expectations of teaching shed some light on the reasons
why so many will, according to the statistics, walk away from the profession within
the first years of their career? As Snyder et al. contended in their study of pre-service
teachers in the 1990s:
This question is not only interesting in its own right, it is also an important indicator of
how someone will succeed in their chosen professionteachers who feel that teaching is
their calling (a natural inclination and ability to teach that is recognised by others) are
more likely to succeed than others. (Snyder et al., 1995, p. 7)
To date, the links between motivations to teach, expectations of teaching, and
satisfaction and success as a teacher have not been thoroughly explored within an
Australian context of early career teacher turnover.
Participants and method
During the first semester of 2003, prior to undertaking curriculum methodology and
craft knowledge units of study, and prior to block practical experiences, a group of
pre-service teachers were invited to complete a questionnaire with a series of open-
ended and multiple-choice questions designed to gather a range of data about
motivations and expectations. In 2003, the 79 participants in the present study were
undergraduate pre-service teacher education students in the third year of a five-year
degree. The total cohort for the year, comprising all pre-service teachers in Year 3 of
this particular program, was 98. The return rate of the questionnaire responses was
therefore 80%. The Year 3 cohort was selected since they had been exposed to some
general units of study in Education in Years 1 and 2 of the degree, and Year 3 marks
the key point at which students who choose to remain in the combined degree have
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8 J. Manuel
made a clear commitment to continue with teacher education studies. In Years 1 and
2 students have the opportunity to transfer from the combined degree into a non-
teaching stream or another degree. We also considered that surveying the Year 3
cohort, immediately prior to their intensive immersion in curriculum method units
and practical experience, would enable us to gain insights into the embodied experi-
ence and knowledge (Arnold, 2005) that they carry with them into pre-service
courses.
This particular degree program combines cognate discipline studies, concentrated
in Years 1, 2 and partially in 3, with teacher education studies (Bachelor of Arts/Bach-
elor of Education; Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Education), concentrated in Years
3, 4 and 5. The majority of students gained entry into the degree through regular
university admissions procedures, requiring that they had reached a minimum entry
score based on their final post-compulsory examination. The entry score for the
Secondary Combined Degree program at Sydney University has remained steady at
between 85 and 89 (out of a possible 100) between 2000 and 2005. Interestingly,
90% of this entire cohort of Year 3 pre-service teachers had gained a matriculation
result of 90 or higher, placing them in the top 10% of school leavers in New South
Wales, indicating that teaching as a career choice appears to be attracting high-calibre
entrants if the matriculation results are considered to be a worthwhile measure of
achievement.
In this sample of 79 pre-service teachers, 78% were female, with 22% male.
According to the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training (2003),
the ratio of female to male teachers in Australia aged between 21 and 30 years is
around 3:1. The ratio of female to male pre-service teachers in the current research
sample was higher than this national figure. Sixty-five per cent of the sample was aged
between 20 and 21 years at the time of the study. In other words, the majority of
participants were directly school leavers, with the remaining 35% constituted by later-
entry candidates who had either deferred study for one or more years to work or to
travel (18%); candidates who enrolled as mature-entry students (9%); and those who
had come to teaching after one or more other careers or other pathways of study
(8%). According to a report by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment,
Training and Youth Affairs (2002), the average national figure for pre-service teach-
ers who have come to teaching after one or more careers is 22%. Mature-entry and
career-changers were underrepresented in this cohort, with the overwhelming major-
ity of participants being recent school leavers. Mature-entry and career-changers tend
to undertake end-on, graduate-entry teacher education programs, since most already
hold an undergraduate degree.
The distribution of pre-service teachers across curriculum areas has been repre-
sented as follows. In this ITE program, the majority of pre-service teachers undertake
study of at least two secondary curriculum methodology areas. Percentages of single
and combined method areas are presented in Tables 1 and 2, respectively.
The sample cohort was heavily humanities based, with a majority of students taking
either History or English or both as their curriculum methodology subjects. Histori-
cally, the proportion of students entering humanities-based curriculum areas within
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Pre-service teachers motivations for choosing to teach 9
the Secondary Combined Degrees at the University of Sydney has been significantly
greater by around 6:1 than the proportion of those entering the science and mathe-
matics curriculum areas. The relative numbers across the curriculum areas have
remained reasonably steady over the past five years. The ratios of students entering
Table 1. Distribution of pre-service teachers (single method)
Teaching Area (Single) Tally Percentage
History 42 53.2%
English 37 46.8%
TESOL (EFL)* 18 22.8%
Geography 11 14.0%
Languages 11 14.0%
Mathematics 10 12.6%
Science 10 12.6%
Economics 8 10.2%
Drama 3 3.8%
Visual Arts 2 2.5%
Religion 2 2.5%
Invalid 4 5.1%
Total 158 200%
* Teaching English as a Second or Other Language (English as a Foreign Language)
Table 2. Distribution of pre-service teachers (combined method)
Teaching Areas (Combinations) Tally Percentage
English and History 25 31.6%
TESOL (EFL) and Languages 10 12.7%
Mathematics and/or Science 10 12.7%
History and Geography 7 8.8%
History and Economics 6 7.6%
English and TESOL (EFL) 6 7.6%
English and Geography 3 3.8%
History and TESOL (EFL) 2 2.5%
English and Economics 2 2.5%
English and Drama 1 1.3%
History and Drama 1 1.3%
Geography and Religion 1 1.3%
Visual Arts and Languages 1 1.3%
Visual Arts and History 1 1.3%
Drama and Religion 1 1.3%
Invalid 2 1.3%
Total 79 100.0%
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10 J. Manuel
humanities-based streams and science/mathematics-based streams at Sydney Univer-
sity reflect a national trend in other Australian universities, with shortages noted in
science, mathematics and technology enrolments in most Australian ITE programs
(Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, 2002).
The findings: questionnaire responses
1. What factors influenced your decision to become a teacher?
This initial question invited participants to identify one or more factors influencing
their decision to undertake a teacher education course. The responses are given in
Table 3 below.
Three interdependent factors predominate here: intrinsic motivations bound up
with a sense of the inner life, the self and the quest for fulfilment and purpose; a desire
to sustain an engagement with their chosen subject(s); and the opportunity to work
with young people as part of the broader social project of education. Many studies
have explored the appeal of teaching for potential teacher education students, pre-
service teachers at the commencement, during and at the completion of their formal
preparation, and practising teachers (see Snyder et al., 1995; Reid & Caudwell, 1997;
Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000; Spear et al., 2000; Wadsworth, 2001; Hammond, 2002;
Kyriacou et al., 2003; Manuel, 2003a; Priyadharshini & Robinson-Pant, 2003; Ewing
& Manuel, 2005). Consistently, these studies have reported intrinsic and altruistic
reasons (Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000) as the principal motivations for the prospective
Table 3. Factors inuencing the decision to teach
Factor Tally Percentage
Personal fulfilment 56 70.9%
Enjoyment of subject 55 69.6%
Working with young people 52 65.8%
Lifestyle 27 34.2%
Working conditions 15 19.0%
Professional status 6 7.6%
Salary 2 2.5%
Power 1 1.3%
Other:
Help others/make a difference 4 5.1%
Influence of own teacher/s 3 3.8%
Family role models 3 3.8%
Holidays 2 2.5%
Intrinsic desire 1 1.3%
Enjoyed school 1 1.3%
Employment 1 1.3%
Use education elsewhere 1 1.3%
Good if you have children 1 1.3%
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Pre-service teachers motivations for choosing to teach 11
teacher. Lorties (1975) landmark study of teachers conducted in the 1970s identified
the interpersonal nature of teaching and the opportunity to maintain an engagement
with the academic cognate disciplines, as fundamental reasons for choosing to teach.
In one sense, these findings are not surprising. Parker J. Palmer argued that teach-
ing is, at its core, about identity, integrity and seeking connectedness; the call to teach
emerges from the inwardness of the self, or the heart, where intellect, emotion and
spirit converge (Palmer, 1998, p. 5). The perennial, enduring appeal of teaching is
therefore interpreted by some to be deeply anchored in aspects of the subjective inner
landscape of the individual and his or her search for meaning through ideas, relation-
ships and hopewhich, taken together, are, arguably, fundamental to effective teach-
ing and learning. Educational systems or schools can be considered as the crucible
within which travellers in the world of knowledgepupils and teachers alikeseek
meaning and significance for their joint stories (Carneiro, 2003, p. 14). Despite
differences in time, place, and cultural and social conditions, and the postmodernist
tendency to eschew continuities and grand narratives (Eagleton, 2003), this research,
placed alongside that gathered over the past three or more decades, provides some
weight to the notion of teaching as a calling as a core motivation to teach; those
entering the teaching profession often do so because of humanistic reasons predicated
on the assumption that educating to learn and learning to educate are intertwined
journeys (Carneiro, 2003, p. 17).
These reasons have social justice dimensions, tacit in statements made by partic-
ipants such as making a difference to childrens lives and helping others; and these
factors may well be implicit in the predominant responses of personal fulfilment and
working with young people. Again, these results accord with the international
research literature on teacher motivations that has been published over the past three
decades and noted throughout this article. Indeed, in the late 1980s, a study by Howey
and Zimpher in the United States reported that education majors who were choosing
to teach were less concerned about material reward and job security than other college
students (Howey & Zimpher, 1989), even though they articulated an awareness of the
potentially negative aspects of the profession such as difficult working conditions, poor
status and student discipline. Similar studies in the United Kingdom and the United
States have reiterated these findings, reporting that the majority of students entering
a teaching degree do so for professionally sound rather than negative reasons (Reid
& Caudwell, 1997, p. 47) and that working with young people, the desire to make a
difference to childrens lives and society more broadly, a desire to maintain engage-
ment with a subject area and an expectation of high levels of job satisfaction figure
prominently as motivations to choose to teach (see Huberman, 1989; Reid &
Caudwell, 1997; Boser, 2000; Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000; Spear et al., 2000;
Hammond, 2002; Hunt & Carroll, 2003).
Salary did not figure in this research as a significant reason for choosing to teach.
Other studies similarly indicate that salary is not an overriding factor in the initial
decision to teach, but may well be an important factor for choosing not to undertake
a teaching degree, or not to teach once qualified. Further, it may be the impetus for
some to choose to resign from teaching after a period of time.
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12 J. Manuel
The expectancy-value theory of motivation proposed in the work of Wigfield and
Eccles (2000), and originally based on examining motivation and choice in relation
to participating in school subjects, is another lens through which to consider student
teachers choices. The expectancy-value framework explores the links between the
choice of career and the individuals expectations of achievement and success; beliefs
in ability; and the subjective value of the career. Thinking you can teach, being told
that you can teach and early positive experiences in teacher education and teaching
are seen as powerful motivational forces in deciding to teach (Ewing & Manuel,
2005, p. 11) and sustaining that decision.
2. Was teaching your first career preference? Why/Why not?
We were interested in understanding more about the relationship between gender,
age and motivations to teach, particularly in the light of arguments about the chang-
ing career expectations of the so-called Generation Y. This generation consists of
those born in the 1980s and is characterised variously as a generation of people who
will apparently change jobs regularly, seek new challenges and fast promotions, and
expect high levels of job satisfaction. Some research has argued that the nature of
work has changed so dramatically that people entering the workforce now expect to
change careers several times in their working lives. The questions about teaching as a
first career preference, and expectations of the length of time to be spent teaching,
were included as a means of gauging the extent to which this cohort perceived teach-
ing as a short-term or drop-in, drop-out career, or whether the responses reflected
the enduring motivations to teach that have since been identified in this research and
other studies discussed above. The responses given in Table 4 provide data on the
numbers of pre-service teachers, by gender, who chose to teach as a first career pref-
erence, and those who did not. Table 5 provides data on career choice by age. In
Table 6, the reasons participants gave for choosing teaching as a first career prefer-
ence or not are given according to tally.
Interestingly, 57% of pre-service teachers chose teaching as a first career prefer-
ence, with a significant minority43%choosing teaching as a second or later career
preference. This latter statistic may well be an indicator for retention patterns when
it comes to completing the ITE, taking up a teaching appointment upon graduation
and remaining in the profession. In terms of gender, the important point to note is
Table 4. Teaching as a rst career preference by gender
Female Male Total
By Gender Tally % Tally % Tally %
Yes 38 59.4% 7 46.7% 45 57.0%
No 26 40.6% 8 53.3% 34 43.0%
Total 64 100.0% 15 100.0% 79 100.0%
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Pre-service teachers motivations for choosing to teach 13
that the percentage of males who chose teaching as a second or later career preference
is greater than the percentage who chose teaching as a first career preference, with the
latter group constituted by a majority of 1921 year-olds, and the former group made
up of participants aged 22 years or older. When it comes to age, a larger proportion
of female school leavers (1921 years) chose teaching as a first career preference, over
older females, and males in both age brackets.
Qualitative responses were also gathered from participants in order to ascertain the
reasons underlying their choice. These reasons are given in Table 6.
If we consider the reasons why participants chose to teach as a first career preference,
there is strong resonance with the responses given to other questions in this question-
naire about motivations and factors influencing the decision to teach. The desire to
teach is driven by intrasubjective factors: comments such as to fulfil a dream figure
prominently here, as do intersubjective forces such as the influence of family and inspi-
rational teachers. For those who did not rate teaching as a first choice, there is a
default factor evident, with a number of participants electing to enter an ITE program
because they did not gain entry into their preferred course. These participants entered
ITE as a second-best career. Almost as many participants6%entered teaching
Table 5. Teaching as a rst career preference by age
By age
1921
Tally
1921
%
22+
Tally
22+
%
Total
Tally
Total
%
Yes 35 64.8% 14 56.0% 49 57.0%
No 19 35.2% 11 44.0% 30 43.0%
Total 54 100.0% 25 100.0% 79 100.0%
Table 6. Was teaching your rst career choice? Why/why not?
YesFirst PreferenceReason Tally NoNot First PreferenceReason Tally
Dream/always wanted to be a teacher 14 Did not get into other option 6
Family includes teacher/s and natural
abilities
8 Changed mind after starting
something else
5
Idolised teachers at school 7 Family pressure 3
Liked it/interesting 7 Didnt know yet/no clear career path 2
Like subjects 5 Have been working 2
Important role in society 5 Achieved a high University
Admission Index/salary of other jobs
2
Help others to learn/rewarding 4 Teachers are uncool 1
Didnt know what else to do 3
Working with youth 2
Compatible with being a mother 1
Total 56* Total 21*
* Some respondents gave more than one reason and some respondents did not give a reason.
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14 J. Manuel
after trying another course that they had originally preferred, but had since opted out
of in favour of teaching. A handful of participants embarked upon teaching because
of family pressure, a lack of clarity about a career or with a poor perception of teachers
in general, all of which are negative reasons upon which to base the decision to enter
teaching, and may indeed be crucial variables in later patterns of retention and attrition.
3. If teaching was not your first career preference, or first career, what was?
For 43% of this sample, teaching was not a first career preference or first career.
Table 7 provides data on the first preferences and first careers of this group, and
Table 8 provides an overview of broad career groupings.
While it is difficult to generalise about the pathways into teaching for those who
have chosen it as a second or later career or career preference, it is interesting to note
the diversity of occupations identified here and the nature of those occupations: the
majority are, like teaching, professions or careers that require relatively high levels of
commitment, training and experience for success. A significant number are also occu-
pations that rely on interpersonal, service, relational and creative qualities, all of
which are considered to be central to teaching. Around 20% of this group of partici-
Table 7. First career preferences and rst careers
Career Female Male Other Tally
Administration/Business (B) 4 0 0 4
Law (P) 2 0 1 3
Music (C) 2 0 1 3
Politics/Foreign Affairs (P) 3 0 0 3
Army/Defence (PS) 1 1 0 2
Medicine (H) 1 0 0 1
Retail (B) 1 0 0 1
Pharmacy (H) 1 0 0 1
Human Resources (O) 1 0 0 1
Journalism (O) 1 0 0 1
Information Technology (O) 1 0 0 1
Social Work (H) 1 0 0 1
Parenthood (O) 1 0 0 1
Archaeology (O) 1 0 0 1
Physiotherapy (H) 1 0 0 1
Swimming Teacher (B) 1 0 0 1
Acting (C) 1 0 0 1
Design (C) 0 0 1 1
Engineering (O) 0 1 0 1
Psychology (H) 0 1 0 1
Police/Firefighting (PS) 0 1 0 1
Invalid 2 1 0 3
Total 26 5 3 34
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Pre-service teachers motivations for choosing to teach 15
pants entered ITE from business-related backgrounds, suggesting the importance of
altruistic motivations over extrinsic ones for this group.
4. Has there been (or is there) a significant mentor/teacher who influenced your decision to
become a teacher?
A number of studies on motivations of prospective teachers have identified the role of
a significant other as a persuasive force in the decision to teach. Reid and Caudwell,
for example, questioned a group of 453 Postgraduate Certificate in Education
students in the United Kingdom. Twenty-two per cent of the sample reported that
they had been inspired by their former teacher(s) to pursue teaching as a career (Reid
& Caudwell, 1997). We were keen to identify the extent to which the participants in
this study were swayed by their own embodied experience of teachers as personal role
models. The results are given in Table 9 below.
More than 73% of this sample agreed that there is, or has been, a significant teacher
or mentor who influenced the decision to become a teacher. This is a powerful affir-
mation of the generative capacity of the profession to act to good effect (Boomer &
Torr, 1987) and once again underlines the intensely interpersonal and relational
nature of teaching: a strong majority of this sample was persuaded to become teachers
because of a relationship with a current or previous role model. Reflecting on the
central place of the mentor in the ancient and exacting exchange called education
(Palmer, 1998, p. 10), Palmer believes that:
Table 8. Career groupings
Career Groupings Tally Percentage
Business related (B) 7 20.6%
Politics and Law (P) 6 17.6%
Creative Arts (C) 5 14.7%
Health related (H) 5 14.7%
Other (O) 5 14.7%
Public Service (PS) 3 8.8%
Invalid 3 8.8%
Total 34 100.0%
Table 9. A signicant teacher or mentor
By Gender Female Male Other Total
Yes 45 (72.6%) 9 (75%) 4 (80.0%) 58 (73.4%)
No 12 (19.4) 1 (8.3%) 1 (20.0%) 14 (17.7%)
Invalid 5 (8.1%) 2 (16.7%) 0 (0.0%) 7 (8.9%)
Total 62 (100.0%) 12 (100.0%) 5 (100.0%) 79 (100.0%)
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The power of our mentors is not necessarily in the models of good teaching they gave us,
models that may turn out to have little to do with who we are as teachers. Their power is
in their capacity to awaken a truth within us, a truth we can reclaim years later by recalling
their impact on our livesmentors and apprentices are partners in an ancient human
danceit is the dance of the spiralling generations, in which the old empower the young
with their experience and the young empower the old with new life, reweaving the fabric
of the human community as they touch and turn. (Palmer, 1998, pp. 21, 25)
A majority of pre-service teachers in this sample have carried with them an interna-
lised assumption about teaching as a cycle of influence (Manuel, 2003a). The rela-
tional, community-building and meaning-making nature of teaching is not only about
forging connections between teachers and students, but also about empowering
connections between the accomplished teacher and the new teacher. This vision of
teaching embodies deep-seated notions of legacy, inheritance and rites of passage that
pre-service teachers may indeed expect when they begin their career. Whether or not
this expectation is met may, in turn, have far-reaching consequences for the retention
of the new teacher if appropriate support structures and strategies are inadequate or
absent during the apprenticeship phase of the career. Research has clearly demon-
strated that new teachers who do not experience adequate induction into the profes-
sion are three times more likely to resign within the first three years of employment
compared to those who do experience effective induction (Boser, 2000). Adequate
induction presumes a systematic, sustained and structured experience whereby the
newly appointed teacher has formal and informal mentors; regular opportunities for
reflection and discussion; and planned professional development experiences that are
maintained beyond merely the first month, semester or year of appointment.
The nature and form of induction, however, also point to a paradox at the heart of
teaching that this new generation of teachers confronts. On the one hand, teaching is
arguably driven by priorities such as the quest for human betterment; the task of
making sense of and interpreting experience; the need to understand the self and
others; and the desire to create meaning. Teachers are both the preservers of past
wisdom, history and memory, valuing the universal role of education in human
affairs; yet they are also active agents for change, innovation and new ways of being
and knowing in an ever-changing and unstable world. Bullough contends that schools
function on the basis of a modern culture that is fixed and resistant in its structures
and procedures, while the culture outside the school is post-modern, characterised
by change, diversity, complexity and insecurity (Bullough, 1997). For the new
teacher, induction into such a school context raises a host of complex questions about
exactly what they are being inducted into. For some, or many, teachers this clash of
the two cultures may well lead to early career teacher drop-out.
5. What do you consider to be the attributes of an effective teacher? What quality, above all
others, will you bring to the teaching profession?
Linked to the question of a significant other, and in seeking to understand more about
student teachers perceptions of teaching, the questionnaire asked participants to
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Pre-service teachers motivations for choosing to teach 17
identify what they consider to be the characteristics that distinguish effective teachers.
We were interested to gain insights into what attributes of the good teacher the
student teachers had embodied and assimilated into their world view. Participants
were then asked to identify one quality, above all others, that they would bring to the
teaching profession. This question was also designed to gather insights about the
extent to which these prospective teachers saw themselves as possessing the qualities
of the effective teacher that they had identified in the previous question: to what
extent had these pre-service teachers already imagined the self as the effective
teacher. These were open-ended questions and drew the following extensive list of
attributes and qualities, set out in Table 10 and Table 11, respectively.
Participants responded with a comprehensive list of the kinds of qualities and
attributes that would align with international documents that set out what may be
called the touchstone characteristics of the effective teacher (see Brock, 2000). The
responses to both of these questions suggest that participants perceptions of the
effective teacher are generated from an embodied concept of the teacher as a loving,
knowledgeable, committed, engaging and giving person of integrity and creative flair.
Importantly, the attributes of an effective teacher closely parallel the qualities that
participants thought they would bring with them into the teaching profession. The
Table 10. Attributes of an effective teacher
Attributes* Percentage
Communication/listening skills 30.4%
Loving/caring/kind/supportive/genuine 30.4%
Passionate/motivated 26.6%
Interpersonal skills/relational skills/able to relate to young people 25.3%
Knowledgeable and intelligent 21.5%
Understanding/approachable 21.5%
Fun/enthusiastic/sense of humour 21.5%
Patient/calm 15.2%
Respectful of others 12.7%
Time management 11.4%
Honest 7.6%
Organised/prepared 7.6%
Hard-working/dedicated/giving of self 6.3%
Flexible/versatile 6.3%
Creative/innovative 6.3%
Good role model/set example 3.8%
Aware of student needs 3.8%
Assertive 2.6%
Open-minded 2.6%
Diplomatic/fair 2.6%
Responsible 1.3%
Dont know 1.3%
* A total of 203 attributes were identied by 78 respondents.
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18 J. Manuel
responses are dominated by the relational, ethical, emotional, empathic and spiritual
dimensions of teaching.
In 1996, the Report to UNESCO of the International Commission of Education for the
Twenty-first Century, Learning: The Treasure Within, identified the four pillars of learn-
ing: Learning to Be; Learning to Know; Learning to Do; and Learning to Live
Together (Delores et al., 1996). These pillars are evident in the participants
responses to the question of teacher attributes and qualities. What is valued here are
the humanistic aspects of teachers work, the personal and social development dimen-
sions of education; the capacity for connecting, relating and building understanding
through communication, caring and interacting with young people; and the role of
knowledge and understanding.
It is interesting to note the lack of emphasis in the participants responses on the
technique or method of teaching, or qualities that could be associated with the how
and what of teaching and learning. Instead, there is a clear emphasis on qualities that
emanate from the who of teachingthe self of the teacherwhich, once again,
accords with the responses to earlier questions about motivations to teach.
6. Major expectations of teaching as a career
The bulk of respondents in this research fell into the age group defined as Generation
Y so our research with the cohort of ITE students sought to understand more fully
the expectations of the group in terms of both personal fulfilment and predicted
length of employment as a teacher. We were keen to discover if this group had entered
ITE with an image of teaching as a shorter-term or a longer-term career, or as a step-
ping-stone for other related and non-related work.
We asked the participants to identify their major expectations of teaching as a
career and whether they saw themselves teaching in 10 years time. The responses
were as follows in Table 12 and Table 13.
Table 11. One quality you will bring to the teaching profession
Quality Groupings* Percentage
Love/care/service/help/understanding/respect/patience 27.8%
Enthusiasm/motivation/inspiration/passion 15.2%
Humour/fun/happiness 10.1%
Commitment/willing to learn 7.8%
Creativity/innovation/flexibility/proactive skills 6.5%
Knowledge/life experience 5.1%
Integrity/honesty 3.8%
Other (good communicator, extra-curricular talents, being
sensible, empowering students)
6.5%
Invalid 17.7%
Total 100.0%
* Qualities have been grouped.
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Pre-service teachers motivations for choosing to teach 19
An overwhelming majoritymore than 80%of this sample expected teaching to
be a challenging and rewarding career. A little more than half of the females and
males believed that teaching would be fulfilling. This figure closely relates to the
percentage that considers teaching as a longer-term career, suggesting that a longer-
term career and fulfilment may be co-extensive factors.
Interestingly, in response to the next question, a majority of both female and male
participants predict that they will be teaching in 10 years time. This is an intriguing
result, given that 43% of the participants did not choose teaching as a first career or
career preference. There is also a discrepancy between responses to this question and
responses to the preceding question about a long-term or short-term career. This may
be explained by varying interpretations of longer-term and short-term and also by
the percentage of other responses which were qualifying a yes/no answer.
Given the average age of the cohort, this result indicates that more than two-thirds
of the sample see themselves teaching at age 30. While such a questions is of course
hypotheticaland the percentage of participants whose responses included not
sure, perhaps, maybe and depends attests to the difficulty of the question for
Table 12. Expectations of teaching as a career (respondents could identify more than one
expectation)
Expectation
Female
Tally/Percentage
Male
Tally/Percentage
Other
Tally/Percentage
Total
Tally/Percentage
Challenging and
rewarding
53 (85.5%) 7 (58%) 4 (80.0%) 64 (81.0%)
Fulfilling 35 (56.5%) 7 (58%) 1 (20.0%) 43 (54.4%)
Long-term career 26 (41.9%) 5 (41.7%) 3 (60.0%) 34 (43.0%)
Short-term career 7 (11.3%) 2 (16.7%) 0 (0.0%) 9 (11.4%)
Difficult 7 (11.3%) 0 (0.0%) 1 (20.0%) 8 (10.1%)
Other* 5 (8.1%) 2 (16.7%) 0 (0.0%) 7 (8.9%)
Total 133 23 9 165
* Other included travel, mission, constant change, leadership, be a good teacher.
Table 13. Can you see yourself teaching 10 years from now?
Expectation
Female
Tally/Percentage
Male
Tally/Percentage
Other
Tally/Percentage
Total
Tally/Percentage
Yes# 43 (69.3%) 9 (75%) 3 (60%) 55 (69.6%)
No 7 (11.3%) 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 7 (8.9%)
Other* 12 (19.4%) 3 (25%) 2 (40.0%) 17 (21.5%)
Total 62 (100.0%) 12 (100.0%) 5 (100.0%) 79 (100.0%)
# Yes included responses such as probably, hope so.
* Other included responses such as dont know, not sure, maybe, depends, perhaps.
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20 J. Manuel
somethe responses do suggest that the bulk of this sample do not consider teaching
at this stage of their ITE program to be a short-term or drop-in, drop-out occupa-
tion. Such a view resonates with the earlier, qualitative responses to motivations for
teaching: an emphasis on intrinsic reasons for choosing to teach correlates with the
idea of a sustained and extended personal commitment to the profession. The data
from this sample tend to counter the argument that teaching is now increasingly
perceived as a short-term, revolving-door job. Importantly, this sample was in Year 3
of a five-year, full-time specialist teaching degree which entails a substantial commit-
ment of the self, through time, and material, intellectual, emotional and spiritual
resources. It is worth speculating that for this cohort, completing five years of profes-
sional preparation to work in that profession for a short period of time seems to be an
enormous outlay for little return, although a number of graduates may take up posi-
tions in related areas for which the teaching degree qualifies them.
Conclusion
It has always been my dream to teach (Pre-service teacher, 2002)
Participants in this study chose to embark on a journey to become a teacher for three
fundamental reasons: the quest for personal fulfilment; the desire to work with young
people to make a difference in their lives; and the opportunity to continue a meaning-
ful engagement with the subject of their choice. There is a strong melding here of
personal aspiration; spiritual endeavour; social mission; intellectual pursuit; the
desire for connectedness; and a belief in the power of ideas and relationships mani-
fested in education to alter the conditions of their own and others lives for the better.
For a group of participants with the average age of 21 years, such ideals, idealism,
forward thinking and optimism is worth celebrating. It is also a reflection on the effec-
tiveness of their own education experience, that so many identified the transformative
power of education and wished to become a part of that through teaching. Roslyn
Arnold (2005) defines and elaborates these understandings in her notion of empathic
intelligence:
As educators in classroomaround the world face their students day after daythere is
the potential for a transformative experience to occur. Such an experience will be long
remembered and cherished because it affected an important development in the psychic
life of the student, and possibly the teacher. (Arnold, 2005, pp. 17, 18)
The desire to be agents of change emerged strongly in the responses, with a substan-
tial majoritymore than 73% of the samplenoting that they were influenced in
their decision to teach by a significant teacher or mentor. Most expected teaching to
be a challenging and rewarding career, and almost 70% expected to be teaching in
10 years from now.
The implications of this study for teacher satisfaction, teacher retention and
teacher attrition are worth considering. Firstly, if teachers enter the profession to
maintain engagement with the subject area or areas of their choice, then it is a serious
concern that a significant minority of secondary school teachers in New South Wales,
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Pre-service teachers motivations for choosing to teach 21
and across Australia, are teaching out of their specialisation. Palmer (1998) argues
that the subjects we teach are integral to who we are as teachers: teacher identity and
the sense of selfthe who of teachingis organically related to the what and how
of teaching. Being disconnected from this essential component of identity as a teacher
may well lead to levels of dissatisfaction and versions of disillusionment that prompt
early career teachers to question their decision to teach.
Secondly, many Australian models of professional development and teacher induc-
tion tend to emphasise the practical skills and the techniques of teaching, inducting
new teachers into the dominant culture and bureaucracy of the profession, with little,
if any, attention given to the moral, spiritual, emotional, empathic and subjective
dimensions of the teachers life and work. The latter tend to remain invisible, or at
least undervalued in teacher support materials and programs. Yet, an overwhelming
majority of participants in this study, and many other studies recorded in the research
literature over the past three decades, chose to teach on the basis of intrinsic reasons,
bound up in the personal, subjective desires and aspirations of the individual. In
considering teacher satisfaction and growing rates of early career teacher attrition, it
may be worth promoting ways in which teachers can be validated and supported in
nurturing, sharing and building upon these empathic intelligence (Arnold, 2005)
dimensions of their work.
Importantly, many prospective teachers enter teaching with a sense of mission: to
transform the lives of young people and open opportunities for growth through learn-
ing and connecting. As robust as this altruistic vision seems to be at the ITE stage of
teacher development, it is susceptible to being whittled away under the weight of
unreasonable and unmanageable workloads in the initial phases of appointment;
burgeoning administrative requirements; school culture and leadership that margin-
alises rather than embraces new teachers voices; little choice for the new teacher in
what school they are appointed to; deficit models of teaching and learning that may
prevail in some schools; and a lack of sustained professional support during the early
years. The implications of a poorly managed start to a teachers working life can be
monumental when it comes to the longer-term resilience and commitment of the
individual within the profession.
Effective support programs, such as, for instance, the New South Wales Department
of Education and Trainings Teacher Mentor Program, have been demonstrably
successful in addressing some of these issues of new teacher support and induction,
particularly in schools where there are high numbers of early career teachers. This
program includes the appointment of dedicated teacher-mentors to 90 schools across
the State with significant patterns of new teacher appointments. (The total number
of new teacher appointments in New South Wales is approximately 2300 per year.)
In 2005, the percentage of new teachers supported by this program increased from
around 20% (during 20032004) to around 60%, with a budget allocation of AU$5.12
million (New South Wales Department of Education and Training, 2005).
Along with such programs of new teacher support, we also require more qualitative
longitudinal studies which record the experience of teacherssuch as those in the
current researchthrough the early years of teaching to determine the links between
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22 J. Manuel
expectations in ITE, experiences of teaching and decisions about career progress.
Considering the intention of a significant majority of the participants in this study to
be teaching in 10 years time, such research is vital. The results of the present study
suggest that teaching is still a profession that is considered by many entering ITE as
a longer-term vocation rather than a drop-in, drop-out or revolving-door job.
Finally, one of the experiences common to those called to teach is the influence of
a former or current teacher or mentor. Teaching and learning, at its core, is about
relationships and connectionsbetween teachers and students; accomplished teach-
ers and new teachers; schools and communities; hopes and their realisation; and
aspirations and their fulfilment. It is encumbant upon teacher educators, experi-
enced teachers, the teaching profession more broadly, parents and employers not
only to understand the centrality of such relationships to new teachers motivations
and expectations, but also to create legitimate cultural and intellectual space, in
policy and practice, for the voices and visions of these new teachers to flourish. In so
doing, new teachers may indeed be sustained over the longer term in their dream to
teach.
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