Establishing Factors Leading to the Pre-service Education Students’ Choice of Teaching as a Career

Abstract

This paper established factors leading to the pre-service education student’s choice of teaching as a career. The third and fourth year pre-service education students from six public and private universities in Kenya were the respondents. Concurrent mixed method approach was employed in this study. Purposive, cluster and convenience sampling methods were used. Data were gathered using questionnaires and interviews. In data analysis, frequencies, means and standard deviation were used. The study established that the following factors affected pre-service education student’s decision to become teachers. (i) Fallback, (ii) External factors, (iii) Self-concept (iv) Altruistic reasons (v) Extrinsic reasons and (vi) Intrinsic motivation. The findings established that all the influential factors were important to the pre-service education students to join the teaching profession. None of the influential factors was very important to their decision to choose teaching as a career. The pre-service education students pointed out that their high school grade is what really determines their career path. Fallback as one of the influential factors was found to have been slightly important in their decision to enter the teaching profession.