Date of Award

January 2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Sherryl Houdek

Abstract

Perceptions of prestige, status, and esteem of the teaching career were explored in this study. The population consisted of 1,127 high school seniors and college undergraduates. The study included 51 statements where participants rated their perceptions of teaching’s prestige, status, and esteem on an 8 point Likert scale. The data was factor analyzed, and the results identified that the perceptions of teaching’s prestige consisted of financial and image perceptions. A descriptive analysis found that high school senior and college undergraduate perceptions of teaching’s financial component of prestige (M = 9.99, SD = 2.90) and esteem (M = 10.42, SD = 3.05) were more negative in comparison to status (M = 13.38, SD = 2.74).

A variety of quantitative techniques measured the effects that the perceptions of teaching’s prestige, status, and esteem had on high school senior and college undergraduate teaching considerations. The results indicated that the perceptions of teaching’s status may encourage high school seniors and college undergraduates to consider careers in teaching, but the perceptions of esteem may produce opposite effects. The results demonstrated that the perceptions of teaching’s esteem may discourage high school seniors and college undergraduates scoring in the upper deciles of the ACT from considering teaching. The results also found that the perceptions of esteem may discourage urban female high school seniors and college undergraduates from the teaching career. The results indicated the perceptions of teaching’s esteem and its interaction with the financial perceptions of teaching’s prestige may discourage aspiring teachers from teaching. This result also raises questions as to the “roots” of the early teacher attrition problem. In contrast, the results found that high school seniors and college undergraduates may be more likely to consider teaching following the establishment of international education policy designed to improve the perceptions of teaching’s prestige, status, and esteem.

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