Teacher education and career cycle: educational level and pathways effects in Serbia and Greece

Abstract

Given the importance of teachers' work and effectiveness, the authors have chosen to study how the teachers' education determines their vocational behavior in terms of enthusiasm and growing and career frustration in Serbia and Greece. They examined the significance of education level and education pathway in mutual interaction and in interaction with intrinsic motivation of career choice. The study used survey methodology. The questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 213 secondary school teachers. The results indicate that career characteristics do not differ with respect to the level of formal education and the authors conclude that transit to the world of work can be made after the bachelor level, when the bachelor program includes adequate pedagogical preparation. The effect of education pathway interaction with intrinsic motivation was significant in the sample of Greek teachers. Teachers, who had undergone more thorough preparation for teaching, have developed their job attitudes independently from their career choice motivations. The lesser significance of initial motivation for teaching is interpreted as a possibility to compensate for lower levels of motivation by developing teaching competences, i.e. facilitating self-efficacy through teacher training. No evidence of teacher preparation effects was found in the Serbian sample, indicating that teachers educated according to the old system pathways cannot be expected to achieve different job attitude.