High School Students’ Attitudes towards the Teaching Profession

Attitudes of High School Students Towards the Teaching Profession in Iraqi Kurdistan

“…Following approval by the University Council, data from participants were gathered between 1-12 February 2017. The researcher used a self-designed questionnaire of which most of the questions were derived from the work of Mutshaeni, Denhere and Ravhuhali (Mutshaeni, Denhere, & Ravhuhali, 2015) in English Language medium with a five-point Likert scale and later on he has this questionnaire translated to Arabic, Kurdish, Sorani and Badini, dialects in Kurdish Language. After having been translated, the questionnaire was conducted to 50 university students whose native language was Kurdish and Arabic to check the consistency of the languages in Erbil.…”

“…Therefore, there is a close relationship between the development of society and teaching profession, or choosing teaching profession as a career. Yet, researches show that the teaching profession as a career is not as attractive as its effect on the society (Gough, 1990;Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000;Halperin & Ratteree, 2003;Mutshaeni, Denhere, & Ravhuhali, 2015)There have been many research studies around the world for the last 20 years regarding the motivational factors of choosing teaching profession as a career (Brown, 1992;Chuene, Lubben, & Newson, 1999;Kyriacou & Kobori, 1998) and it was significantly found that parents, teachers, socio-economic status, career counseling, job opportunity and any role model in students' lives were the main factors that effect student's teaching profession career choice (Darren, 2013) Research studies show that the families and the social environment play an important part in the career aspiration and career choices (Carpenter & Fleishman, 1987;Hossler & Stage, 1992;Shumba & Naong, 2012,). While the students are trying to make their decisions on career choice, they feel the need of psychological support from their parents.…”

“…This expectations and offers changes from person to person. However, it has emerged lately that the teaching profession is featured lowly among the high schools students (Halperin & Ratteree, 2003;Mutshaeni, Denhere, & Ravhuhali, 2015;Murnane, Singer, Willett, Kemple, & Olsen, 1991;Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000). The reasons behind the students negative attitudes towards teaching profession were reported such as over workload, less payment, high stress, lack of status in the society and glamour (Gough, 1990;Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000).…”