An investigation into the students’ choosing mathematics as a teaching profession

Research Article

Abstract

The profession of mathematics is known to be difficult in society (Cakir & Akkaya, 2017). In this direction, in this study, it is aimed to determine the factors that impact the choices of the students who are preparing for university exams and considering to choose mathematics teaching department. In this study, where the qualitative research method was adopted, the focus group interview was used as the data collection technique. The focus group interviews aim to gain in-depth, detailed and multidimensional qualitative information about the participants' perspectives, experiences, interests, experiences, tendencies, thoughts, perceptions, emotions, attitudes and habits on a given topic (Bowling, 2014; Gibbs, 1997; Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990). The participants were selected by purposeful sampling method among the students preparing for the university exam. In the study, as a data collection tool, firstly, some of the questions included in ‘the scale of the reasons for choosing the teaching profession’ prepared by Ozsoy, Ozsoy, Ozkara and Memis (2010) were compiled and interview questions were prepared. Afterward, the semi-structured interview form was used as the data collection tool for the study. the findings show that the reasons for choosing mathematics teaching profession could be examined under seven headings: The impact of family and close environment, the impact of the teacher, the interest of this profession in web-based examinations, the impact of job security, the impact of students' ideals, the impact of whether the profession is suitable for them and the needs of the education system and the desire to meet them. Besides, it was determined that some of the students who prepared for the exam did not have any negative thoughts about mathematics courses even though they interpreted mathematics as a difficult course.