Exploring the Formation of Teaching Career Choice Motivation: A Grounded Theory Study of Graduate Pre-Service Technology Teachers

The purpose of this study is to deeply explore the formation process of motivations for choosing a teaching career among pre-service technology teachers enrolled in graduate school. To achieve this, the following research questions were formulated: ① What are the reasons why these pre-service technical teachers gave up their previous career paths?, ②What are the reasons why they came to wish to become technology teacher?, ③If the graduate school courses had an influence on establishing their identity as technical teachers, what were the specific processes and experiences? The study participants were 13 pre-service technology teachers who had been enrolled in a graduate program specializing in technology education for at least one year. In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the research participants to create raw data, and the data were analyzed through the process of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Through this process, this study derived the core categories as ‘the path to graduate school in technology education after many twists and turns, the true self and career path discovered at the end of the journey: me as a technology teacher.’ In addition, the overall story structure of the phenomenon and the story outline and visual model of the relationship between the categories were presented. Through this study, it was revealed that the research participants gave up their previous career paths, explored alternative career paths, and experienced graduate school to find their true selves and career paths, and to prepare for the ‘me as a technology teacher’. The conclusions of the study derived from these results are as follows. First, the reason why graduate pre-service technology teachers gave up their existing career paths is because they chose their major without much thought during their school days, but after entering university or entering the field, they discovered that their major and job aptitude did not match their interests. Second, the reason why graduate pre-service technology teachers aspire to become technology teachers is because they happened to learn about graduate schools specializing in technology education and, in the process, thought that being a technology teacher matched their aptitude, interests, and values. Third, the opportunity for graduate pre-service technology teachers to establish their identity as technology teachers was achieved through various experiences such as student teaching, major and teaching classes, and interactions with people while attending graduate school.