Factors that Lead Teachers into Teaching: Responses from 125 Teachers

Determining Predominant Factors for Entering Teaching

On the following pages you will find responses from 125 teachers who were asked the question, “What major factors lead you into teaching?” Your task is to read over the responses and determine the factors that seem to predominate. What rea-sons are included in these responses? You may need to look at closely related wordings from several responses and generate a category name that is not mentioned explicitly. In the process you are defining categories. The list of categories that you generate should be both mutually exclusive and exhaustive.After you generate your set of categories, list the categories in a column down the left side of a sheet of paper. Then write the respondent number(s) so that you show how each response should be catego-rized. Sometimes respondents will mention more than one factor. You will need to decide how to handle that.Next, count the number of responses in each category and calculate the percent.In class you will share your results in a small group so you might prepare 4-5 copies for other group members. Questions for the group include:1.Did eveyone generate the same categories? Which categories did most individuals identify and which categories are unique to one or two students?2.How much agreement is there among group members about the percent of responses in each cate-gory? What are the top 5 categories?3.How much agreement exists among group members about which particular responses belong to which categories? Is the amount of disagreement large?4.How did group members handle responses that stated more than one factor for entering teaching?