What influences students to choose the elementary education major : the case of Cyprus

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify and compare the factors that have motivated third and fourth year students at the University of Cyprus to choose the elementary school teaching profession. The sample consisted of 176 students that were studying elementary education during the Fall of 1995. The questionnaire was administered to all students that were enrolled in certain elementary education classes which were selected randomly. Responses to the questionnaire items were factored using the principal components analysis with varimax rotation. Six factors were retained and they accounted/or 63.3 percent of the variance. The first factor was accounted for 18.3 percent of the variance in the six factor solution. Items in this factor with loadings greater than 0.50 concerned the students' ideas about: love of teaching, love of the teaching / learning process, love of working with young children, and inborn talent for teaching. This factor was called 'internal motives'. The second/actor accounted for 15.3 percent of the variance and included items describing vacations, immediate employment, job possibilities, secure job, and fringe benefits, and was called 'job benefits'. The third factor accounted for 9.7 percent of the variance and was called 'status of the profession'. The fourth factor accounted for 8.3 percent of the variance and was called 'relatives' influences'. The fifth and sixth factor accounted for 6.4 and 5.3 per.cent of the variance respectively and were called 'external motives' and 'teacher influence'.