Commitment to teaching is a recurring topic in both research and policy discussions on teaching and the teaching profession. We investigated factors explaining differences in student-teachers’ commitment to the teaching profession and to student learning, and their intentions to enter the teaching profession. Student-teachers (n = 3,246) from one University College in Tanzania completed a Commitment-to-Teaching questionnaire. Bandura’s Social-Cognitive Theory was used to explain the findings. Differences in student-teachers’ commitment were explained by personal characteristics (i.e., student-teachers’ sense of self-efficacy), environmental factors (i.e., perceived influence of significant others and school conditions), and learning experiences (i.e., student-teachers’ attitudes towards the teaching profession, their teaching subjects, and satisfaction with the teacher education programme). Implications for practice and for research on student-teachers’ commitment to teaching are discussed.

https://doi.org/10.15700/saje.v39n1a1485



ORCiD iDs of authors:
Ikupa Moses - http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9102-7078
Wilfried Admiraal - http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1627-3420
Amanda Berry - http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9902-7582
Nadira Saab –http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0751-4277

Cited by: 0