Pre-service and Beginning Teachers’ Professional Identity and its relation to Dropping Out of the Profession

This article was published in Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 26, Issue 8,
Author(s): Ji Y. Hong, ' Pre-service and Beginning Teachers’ Professional Identity and its relation to Dropping Out of the Profession', Pages 1530-1543, Copyright Elsevier (November 2010).

The current study examines different perceptions of pre-service and beginning teachers’ professional identity in relation to their decisions to leave the profession.

The study employed mixed-methods which included 84 participant surveys, and 27 interviews from four groups of participants at different stages of teaching.

The findings revealed that pre-service teachers tended to have naïve and idealistic perceptions of teaching.
Furthermore, dropout teachers showed most emotional burnout.

Implications for improvement of teacher education and retention of beginning teachers are discussed.