Choosing Teaching as a Career: Views of Turkish Pre-Service Teachers

This study aims to examine pre-service teachers’ views on choosing teaching as a career from different perspectives. In line with this aim, the study investigates pre-service teachers’ willingness to choose teaching, their reasons for choosing the teaching profession, whether they would have chosen the profession again and why, which alternative areas they would have chosen if not, and their approaches to teaching in the context of a new structuring, such as the National Education Academy (NEA). Designed as a qualitative case study, the study was conducted with 266 senior pre-service teachers enrolled in nine different teacher education programs at a state university in Türkiye. Data were elicited through a structured interview form administered in a face-to-face format with pre-service teachers in collective classroom settings. Content analysis results indicated that while the majority of pre-service teachers chose the teaching profession willingly, they stated that they would not choose the teaching profession again and would move into different fields. The reasons for choosing teaching were grouped under the themes of “personal interests and inclinations,” “values and beliefs,” “personal competence and suitability,” “family and environmental influences,” “academic and score conditions,” and “professional opportunities and conditions.” Additionally, most pre-service teachers reported that the NEA had a negative impact on their perspectives on the teaching profession.