Who expects to become a teacher? The role of educational accountability policies in international perspective

Abstract

In this study, I examine between-country differences in students' expectations of becoming teachers. I use data from 365,298 students from 50 countries participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015. The results reveal that high-achieving students in countries that implement test-based educational accountability policies are less likely to expect to work as teachers than students in systems that do not use such policies. This suggests that test-based accountability policies may discourage highly skilled candidates from entering the teaching profession and these policies may act as barriers to attracting high-quality teacher candidates.