Abstract:

The present qualitative research aims to reveal the motives and expectations of teacher candidates who have graduated from or dropped out of an associate or graduate degree in either early childhood education intending to pursue elementary or preschool teaching as their second career. The participants consist of 20 voluntary teacher candidates (17 female and 3 male) enrolled either programs in academic year of 2017-2018. The questionnaire with 12 open-end questions required participants to self-report on their main reasons to choose their new programs and their expectations from the programs. Relevant personal profile data such as gender, age, educational background were also collected. The data were content-analyzed. Participants in primary education program mostly have dropped out of schools of economics and administrative sciences and faculties of science and letters, while those who are attending preschool teaching program have graduated from faculties of science and letters and education faculties. The participants in both groups declare that they have preferred their current programs for their interest in teaching and higher opportunity of employment that the programs offer. The participants think that the reasons for which they have either left or graduated from a program and started at education faculty are still prevailing, and even the conditions forced them to switch to teaching change, they would not return to their previous education or benefit from its attainments. As for their previous educational experiences, they report that their tertiary education programs have either facilitated or contributed to comprehend certain courses more easily, and some other higher education experiences. The reactions that the participants had while deciding to choose their new teaching program are noted mainly positive for primary education program but unfavorable for preschool education program. They state that they would prefer a teaching education program and a field appealing to their interest if they had a chance to start their tertiary education all over again. The results have been discussed in the light of the available literature and some suggestions have been developed for executives.

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