Purpose: Aligning social identity and career identity has become increasingly complex due to growth in the pursuit of meaningful careers that offer very long-term personal satisfaction and stability. This paper aims to explore the complex cognitive and affective thought process involved in the conscious planning of voluntary career change.…

The relation of the core components of the Effort-Reward Imbalance model (ERI; Siegrist, 1996) to goal pursuit was investigated. Goal pursuit was studied through categories of goal contents--competency, progression, well-being, job change, job security, organization, finance, or no work goal--based on the personal work goals of managers (Hyvonen,…

There is a chronic international shortage of mathematics and science teachers, particularly physicists. The study reported here examines why physicists become teachers and why they stay in teaching. Physicists from seven preservice teacher training cohorts from three English universities were invited to answer an online survey with follow-up…

One of the challenging issues that educational organizations in developing countries face in staffing classrooms with qualified teachers is the high rate of teachers' turnover. It creates problems for schools, which eventually leads to substandard instruction and low student achievement. This research explores the causes of English teachers'…

Background/Context: Most accounts of teacher attrition fall into one or both of the following categories: teacher life cycle and workplace conditions. Many educational researchers have described and analyzed teaching in moral and ethical terms. Despite the numerous articles and books that study the personal convictions of teachers, a sustained…

Diversity in the workforce can be attributed to both a popular, cultural shift and legislative intervention. Despite these forces, discrimination endures in all aspects of Western society from education to employment. Unequal pay and opportunities for promotion are symptoms of a systematic discrimination of individuals based on race and gender.…

This qualitative study of 20 student affairs master's students explored their career plans and perceptions of the field. Five themes emerged from interviews with participants who considered leaving student affairs to pursue other careers: (a) distance from the institutional mission, (b) student affairs as devalued work, (c) lack of fulfillment,…

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the ways former professional scientists who are learning to become teachers understand the planning and implementation of instructional design 1) while they are in a university program learning to become teachers and 2) during their first year of full-time teaching in a secondary classroom. The study used…

This study explored Wyoming school leaders' perceptions about the traits of incompetent teachers, strategies used to work with incompetent teachers, and the barriers to their dismissal. Most importantly, this study differentiated how principals and superintendents viewed incompetency issues. Some major findings include school leaders' beliefs that…

This article summarizes the results of a qualitative study of career transition experiences of middle-aged male scientists and engineers in the current socioeconomic environment in the United States. The study addresses the effects of the transitions from psychosocial perspectives. The authors selected participants from research organizations,…

A unique multi-part qualitative study methodology is presented from a study which tracked the transformative journeys of four career-changing women from STEM fields into secondary education. The article analyzes the study's use of archived writing, journaling, participant-generated photography, interviews, member-checking, and reflexive analytical…

The nation's middle schools suffer from a shortage of qualified science and mathematics teachers. To address this need, one university in the southwest has developed the Modeling Institute, a master's degree program for in-service elementary educators interested in teaching science and mathematics at the middle school level. Identifying the…

This doctoral dissertation describes a study that explored needs and expectations for adult part-time graduate students enrolled in a career switcher alternative route teacher licensure program. The qualitative case study relied primarily on interview data and led to the development of the Facilitator-Blocker Theory for Career Switchers. The…

The broad utility of the concept of transition in many disciplines provides career educators and career advisory personnel with expanded opportunities to explore fresh solutions to problems they meet in the course of their work. Further practical solutions become available by continuing to seek applications of the concept. Career transition…

Previous research has established a general relation between networking and career outcomes, as postulated by theories on protean careers and career self management. We suggest that specific facets of networking behavior differentially affect specific career mobility outcomes over time. In a 2-year prospective study, we examined the impact of six…