Browsing by Author "Piikki, Katariina"

The purpose of this study is to find out why adults with a profession change career into teaching. This study also aims to find participates motives to perceive a career in teaching, their perceptions about teacher's profession and the reasons behind the career change. The research approach of this study was qualitative. Ten subjects, teachers and teacher students, participated in this study. Three of them were primary school teachers, one secondary school teacher and one vocational teacher. Five of the participates were teacher students, four of whom studied to be a special education teacher and one a primary school teacher. Nine of the participates were women and one man. The data was collected between years 2014-2015 using open, electric questionnaire. Questionnaire included background information about participates and eleven open questions. The data was processed using content analysis. Results that came up from this study were processed in regard to theories and earlier studies. According to this study the most important motives to become a teacher were the participates strong respect for teacher's profession. They felt that teacher's profession is significant and important in the society. Important motives were also the desire to work with children and adolescent and the possibility as a teacher to influence positively in children and adolescent's future. In this study the inner motives to perceive teaching as a career were more significant than the outer motives. As outer motives the participants mentioned benefits of the profession such as a long summer vacation, regular, family friendly working hours and academic education. Much more positive aspects were linked to teachers profession than negative aspects. Teachers profession was seen as important and significant in the society. Humanity, variability, diversity, creativity and the possibility to work with children and adolescents were seen as positive sides in teachers profession. Negative aspects in teachers profession were the society's demands for teachers, hurry, intensity and lack of resources. Participants changed career for many reasons. Student teachers motives to become a teacher have been studied for many decades. This study brings new, positive aspects to why older career changers with more life experience perceive career in teaching.