Factors Influencing Mathematics Teaching as a Career Choice (FIMT-Choice): An Instrument Development and Validation
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Abstract
The study developed and validated an instrument that assess the motivations of secondary mathematics pre-service teachers (SMPTs) in choosing mathematics teaching as their career, hereto referred as Factors Influencing Mathematics Teaching as a Career Choice (FIMT-Choice). The study adopted items from Factors Influencing Teaching as a Career Choice (FIT-Choice) instrument by Watt and Richardson and calibrated or added items suited to the local area. The notion that content mathematics could be among the motivations of secondary pre-service teachers in choosing math-teaching career was also considered. The study generated 56 final items in the FIMT- Choice instrument, which were validated among 171 secondary mathematics pre-service teachers (SMPTs) in two prominent teacher education institutions in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines. Statistical tools such as Cronbach’s Alpha, Bartlett's Test of Sphericity, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and the Principal Component Factor Analysis were used to establish the reliability and validity of the instrument. The results suggest that the SMPTs consider 10 valid and reliable constructs in choosing mathematics teaching as their career. Particularly, the SMPTs separate the mathematics, the teaching, and the combined mathematics teaching aspects in their motivations in entering the mathematics-teaching career. Thus, the FIMT-Choice Scale assess more specific areas of motivations in choosing mathematic- teaching as a career among SMPTs compared with the FIT-Choice Scale by Watt and Richardson. Hence, the FIMT- Choice Scale is a more precise instrument in exploring the motivations of SMPTs in entering the methematics teaching career.
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