Journal article
Understanding the reasons why career changers pursue or pass on a STEM teaching career: a Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) approach
AER, Vol.52, pp.231-253
2025
Abstract
Intractable shortages of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers have prompted international policy efforts to recruit career changers to the profession. This research determines the significant influences on career changers’ decisions to pursue or pass on STEM teaching careers. Surveys completed by 91 career changers from Queensland, Australia, were analysed with Best–Worst Scaling (BWS) methods and Margaret Archer’s theories of reflexivity to establish the relative importance of factors influencing career changers’ deliberations on a STEM teaching career. The social impact of teaching was the most influential factor for career changers considering STEM teaching. Career changers who pursued the profession were also influenced by past teaching experiences and feelings towards STEM subjects. Conversely, career changers who decided against STEM teaching indicated their personal traits and life circumstances might not suit a teaching career. These findings offer implications for research and policy aimed at recruiting career changers into STEM teaching careers.
Details
- Title
- Understanding the reasons why career changers pursue or pass on a STEM teaching career: a Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) approach
- Authors
- Erin Siostrom (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Education and Tertiary AccessReece Mills - Queensland University of TechnologyTerri Bourke - Queensland University of Technology
- Publication details
- AER, Vol.52, pp.231-253
- Publisher
- Springer Dordrecht
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.1007/s13384-024-00712-5
- ISSN
- 2210-5328
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Data Availability
- Not applicable.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Education and Tertiary Access; STEM in Education Research Theme
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991016470902621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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