Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of a large-scale survey of undergraduates in England, concerning their envisaged career choices and how they made them. This gives a more complete account of those who do and do not want to be teachers than usual in the existing literature based primarily on prospective/existing teacher accounts. The paper looks at the issue of shortages, the reasons why people might be deterred from teaching, and summarises the methods used in our new study, followed by the results. The results cover descriptive analyses, and a comparison of responses from those who considered being a teacher (or not), those who had applied to train as a teacher (or not), and those intending to teach. These results are put together in two logistic regression models, one predicting/explaining who considered teaching, and the second explaining who then intends to become a teacher. Conclusions are drawn in the final section.
Highlights
Attracting and retaining qualified teachers in at least some subjects and geographical areas is a common challenge in many developed countries
The following tables compare the characteristics and responses of those who considered teaching as a career, those who have applied for teacher training, and those who intend to become teachers
The research described here is unusual in that it involves teachers, potential teachers and those not interested in teaching. This alters the kinds of findings produced by standard research based only on the views of teachers
Summary
Attracting and retaining qualified teachers in at least some subjects and geographical areas is a common challenge in many developed countries. Various initiatives have been used to try and attract trainees to shortage areas and subjects These include targeted advertising, bursaries and scholarships for shortage subjects, loan forgiveness, paid internships, incentive payments for teaching in shortage regions, and more specific approaches like the UK Future Scholars programme. In the same way that so much research on widening participation to higher education is distorted by only considering those who apply to or enter university (Gorard 2013), work on teacher supply largely ignores the key group of those who might have become teachers but decide against It is surely the barriers and facilitators from the perspective of this group that we need to uncover if we wish to improve teacher supply. Our new study addresses all of these issues and more It includes systematic reviews, secondary data analyses, a survey of trainee teachers, and interviews with undergraduates before they make a choice of career. The focus is on the largest survey element of the project – a generic career questionnaire for undergraduates in many subjects in 53 universities in England
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