| dc.description.abstract | The study attempted to establish the correlates of commitment to career choice
of pre-service education students in six public and private universities in Kenya. The
third and fourth year pre-service education students were the respondents in this
study. The study is founded on two theories; the Atkinson’s Expectancy-Value theory
and Bandura’s Self efficacy theory. Correlational research design and concurrent
mixed method approach was employed in this study. Purposive, cluster and
convenience sampling methods were used. Data were gathered by the use of
questionnaires and interviews. In data analysis, frequencies, means, standard
deviation, linear regression and Pearson product moment correlation coefficient were
used. The pre-service education students were found to be moderately committed to
their career choice and that intrinsic motivation, self-concept, status of the teaching
profession, fallback and socio-cultural beliefs were correlated to career choice.
Fallback however had an inverse correlation to the commitment of career choice. The
pre-service education students chose teaching as a career because they had passion for
teaching and wanted to make a positive change in the education sector. They also felt
that the KUCCPS needs to come up with a better way of placing students into the
teaching profession but not just through the cluster points attained in the Kenya
Certificate of Secondary Education. The pre-service education students felt that the
entry requirements to the teaching profession need to be raised to make the profession
comparable with other professions like medicine, engineering, and law among others.
Other factors like interest and ability should be put into consideration when placing
students in the teaching profession. The study recommends the implementation of the
predictive model to enhance commitment and reduce wastage of human resources
when trained teachers opt for other job opportunities. | en_US |
