TEACHING AS A CAREER CHOICE: PERCEPTIONS OF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL (TVE) STUDENT TEACHERS

For the study we selected technical and vocational student teachers and asses their perceptions about teaching as a career and factors motivating them to eventually choose teaching career. The total population for this research was 694 technical and vocational student teachers attending four public universities. A stratified random sampling procedure was employed to select 300 samples for the study. The sample consisted of Agriculture Science students (10%), Home Science students (8%), Living Skills students (61%), Mechanical Engineering students (3%), and 18% were Technical and Vocational Education students. The study showed that almost 88% of the respondents will choose teaching as a career upon graduation and 12% will not do so. In general, TVE student teachers have a positive perception about teaching as a career (Mean=4.41, SD. = 0.41). They have a high expectation for teaching (Mean=4.39, SD. = 0.43) and they think they have made a good decision to enrol in teacher education program to prepare them for teaching position (Mean=4.48, SD. = 0.53). We believe that TVE student teachers did not make a haphazard decision when choosing their potential career.