Abstract

The professional plans, satisfaction levels, demographic characteristics, perceptions and motivations of different teacher types were investigated among graduate-entry primary and secondary teacher education candidates from three Australian universities in our ongoing large-scale and longitudinal “FIT-Choice” research program. In this study, participants provided quantitative and qualitative survey data at two time-points: at their entry to teacher education, and immediately prior to completion of their qualification. Teacher types were classified using cluser analysis on the basis of their exit levels of planned effort and persistence within the teaching profession, and their professional development and leadership aspirations via the PECDA Scale (Watt & Richardson, 2008). Three distinct types were identified: “highly engaged persisters”, highly engaged switchers”, and “lower engaged desisters”. Differences in motivations for having chosen teaching as a career, perceptions about the profession, and career intentions were contrasted for the three types, and demographcis characteristics compared. In light of our findings, teacher education and teacher employing authorities need to take seriously the different types of beginning teachers having different levels of engagement and planned career trajectories. Educators and employers must go beyond the assumption that a person coming into teacher education and into a career in teaching hold with a traditional lifetime career model of job security founded on incremental age-related advancement and loyalty to the profession. For beginning teachers, their different profiles of goals, commitments, plans, and aspirations will inevitably lead to different pathways of professional identity and development.