Profiling pre-service teachers’ reasons of teaching in Turkey

This study examines four factors that predict the level of teaching motivation for prospective teachers (PTs): program types, gender, age, and personal reasons for choosing teaching as a career. The discriminant analysis was used to test whether statistically significant differences exist between PTs’ teaching motivation level and the four predicting factors of teaching motivation. The result of this study suggests that PTs with a low level of teaching motivation can be reliably distinguished from PTs with a high level of teaching motivation by the type of program, the gender, age and grouped personal reasons for choosing teaching as career.