Factors that Influence Students to Become Teachers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify and compare the factors that had influenced students at the Pennsylvania State University and at the University of Cyprus to major in elementary education. A questionnaire was completed by 157 students from PSU and by 176 students from the UC. The factors that were identified were variety of benefits, internal motives, status of the profession, interpersonal influence and academic ability. The factor “internal motives” was the strongest factor that influenced students from the PSU to major in elementary education. The factors which were highly influential for the students of the University of Cyprus to enter the same major, were the “variety of benefits” and the “status of the profession”.