An Exploratory Study of Undergraduate Recruitment into Several Major Programs at One University

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Abstract
The impact of teacher education programs is determined in part by characteristics of the teaching recruits. Nevertheless, research on recruits remains the exception rather than the rule, and most prior studies have neither been informed by nor contributed to occupational socialization theory. The exploratory research reported here is informed by such theory and is designed to contribute to it. Questionnaires were completed by 55 undergraduates upon entry into several undergraduate majors. In addition to conventional data about each recruit’s biography and physical activity background, teacher education recruits were compared with recruits in other majors. Attention was given to several career concepts (e.g., career map, career contingency, internal career) and differences between early and late deciders. One important finding, which differed from previous work, was that some teacher education recruits viewed learning as the primary purpose of school physical education programs. This finding is encouraging, given the “busy, happy, and good” orientation found in previous studies of undergraduate teacher education majors.