‘I’ve decided to become a teacher’: Influences on career change

The present study explored reasons behind graduates’ decisions to pursue teaching as a career, in a 1-year pre-service teacher education program at an Australian university, located in Melbourne (N=74). A survey collected data about respondents’ reasons for choosing teaching as a career, with open-ended questions eliciting rich qualitative data to elaborate on rating-scale responses. Five factors relating to social status, career fit, prior...