Reasons for (Not) Choosing the Profession of Teaching; A Case Study on Organizational Loneliness-Commitment

The purpose of this study is to reveal the reasons for a classroom teacher (not) to choose the profession and her views on organizational loneliness and commitment related to the profession. A viewpoint, a case study and profession-related views were presented to teachers who would begin their duty or especially those who would work as the only teacher in village schools. In a part of the diary compiled from professional memories, difficulties that might be faced especially by teachers who would be assigned to distant villages under harsh conditions, were tried to be described via a case study.


Introduction
The issue of training qualified and motivated teachers equipped with all necessary pedagogical and content knowledge and language proficiency, has become a precedence for many states. Numerous studies have still examined the effect of teaching application on preservice teachers' perception on their pedagogical choices, teaching skills and motivation of choosing to teach as their future career (Brown, 1992;Javornik Krečič, & Ivanuš Grmek, 2005;Low, et al, 2011;Yong, 1995;Dundar, 2014;Osguthorpe & Sanger, 2013). For example, the data were collected from senior preservice teachers in both primary education and early childhood education programs in a university and interviews were conducted with voluntary preservice teachers. The results of the study revealed positive views on pedagogical preferences, teaching proficiency and motivation of both groups. Majority of the statistically significant results were in favor of the primary education group.
As a consequence, it was revealed that a remarkable number of preservice teachers believed that teaching experience had an effect on their pedagogical preferences, teaching proficiency, and motivation. The study resulted in some inferences and suggestions for future studies (Ismail & Jarrah, 2019). On the other hand, the success of regulations in education inevitably depends on the quality and performance of teachers. Thus, it is of great importance to employ high-quality teachers for systems of education. Choosing talented and determined brains for teaching career depends on making it an attractive profession. It is thought that preservice teachers have certain reasons to choose teaching as a career. Several studies reveal that some students choose this profession due to altruistic-internal and external reasons, whereas some choose it under the influence of other people. In a study aiming to determine the reasons for preservice teachers to choose the profession of teaching as a career, it was determined that students usually chose teaching due to altruistic-internal reasons (Balyer & Ozcan, 2014).
In another study, the Factors Influencing Teaching Choice instrument was applied to preservice language teachers in the United States and a group of participants was interviewed to investigate their motivation of becoming a language teacher. This mixed-method analysis aimed to reveal joint motivation factors with other disciplines, factors specific to world languages and possible career deterrents. The results also demonstrated a possible correlation between various motivational effects and perceptions and professional commitment (Kissau, et al, 2019). Motivation of preservice teachers to choose teaching as a career was investigated, developed and confirmed using the Factors Influencing Teaching Choice instrument within the context of Australia and was implemented with international examples from Australia, the United States, Germany and Norway. Sample comparisons have revealed that teaching motivations are more similar than these examples; however, perceptions about the profession of teaching also tend to reflect differences of the countries (Watt, et al, 2012).
Another study examining the attitudes and views of teachers on altruism, was conducted with 289 teachers using the mixed research design. The Altruism Interview Form, developed by Yavuzer, et al, (2006) and the "Teacher Altruism Scale" were used. Quantitative findings showed that altruism attitudes of teachers did not vary according to sex, marital status and reasons of choosing the profession of teaching and also according to branch and seniority. According to qualitative findings, majority of teachers indicated that their colleagues made attempts for the needs regarding teacher education (Palta, 2019). One of the reasons for science teacher deficiency in numerical branches is thought to be fewer registrations in science teaching education. In Netherlands, undergraduate students are able to attend a half-year teaching class for secondary education teacher proficiency. It is aimed for undergraduate students to attend teaching education in order to obtain a full proficiency. This study investigated how self-efficacy was correlated with attendance in teaching education and commitment, perceived workload and stress. It also investigated how mastership experiences, indirect experiences, social persuasion and emotional states affected self-efficacy. Findings based on 69 science teaching students demonstrated that self-efficacy was negatively correlated with commitment, workload and stress; whereas it was unrelated with attendance in teaching education. Mastership experiences and positive emotional states explained the variance in self-efficacy. It was indicated that there was a need to conduct more studies investigating all self-efficacy resources and to pay greater attention to emotional states of preservice teachers in both research and application (Van Rooij, et al, 2019).
In order to enhance the quality of teachers further and encourage highly motivated and determined teachers in Scotland for teaching, it is aimed to compare career motivation of Scottish student teachers who choose teaching as a primary career and those who change their career plan to get into teaching while choosing a career, in the context of ongoing concerns and present needs. Interview results demonstrating the teaching motivation tendencies and general motivation patterns of Scottish preservice teachers have not only provided an additional explanation to understand survey results, but also revealed personal stories regarding their decision of choosing the profession of teaching (Wang, 2019). In this context, organizational culture can be spread to employees in various ways for the purpose of choosing determined and effective brains for the profession of teaching and making it permanent as a career. The most effective ones among these ways are stories, habits, physical symbols, and language (Robbins and Judge, 2013).

Stories:
Include narrative incidents about organization founders, employees, past events, reactions and organizational copings. These stories connect today with the past and explain and legitimize present applications. 2. Rituals: Series of stereotyped activities expressing & reinforcing key values of an organization. 3. Physical Symbols: Tell employees who is significant and indicate the degree of justice desired by senior management, as well as appropriate behaviors like risk-taking, authoritarian, participative, individual or social behaviors. 4. Language: Many organizations and their subunits use a language that can help the members integrate with the culture, approve that they have adopted the culture and protect it. That language includes terms related to work equipment, employees, suppliers, customers and products. From this point of view, the purpose of this study is expressed as follows: The purpose of the study is to offer a section regarding the profession of teaching for those who would choose the profession of teaching or desire to make it permanent within the context of organizational culture, by approaching the views and approaches of a permanent classroom teacher on the profession and the change in her way of choosing and sustaining the profession of teaching with her viewpoints, observations and experiences over time, via a case study (professional story).

Research Design
The study, methods and techniques of case study, which is among qualitative research approaches, were employed (Yildirim and Simsek, 2011). For that purpose, views and approaches of a classroom teacher on the profession were analyzed profoundly (Silverman, 1998).

Data Collection
The data were collected via the documentation technique, which is among document and records analysis methods (Ekiz, 2003). As an example to the documents, Lincoln and Guba (1985) usually mention written materials such as "diaries, letters, memories, travel notes, and life stories", prepared for individual purposes (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Apart from these, fieldnotes, official records, drafts, student compositions, homework, technical documents, meeting reports, plans, brochures, advertisements, yearbooks and newspapers are also among data sources referred to in the documentation technique (Cohen, et al., 2007). These documents can be used not only as data sources alone but also in such a way that they may provide supplementary information to other qualitative methods (such as interview, observation) and increase reliability (Cohen, et al., 2007). The professional experience of the teacher, who participated in the study, is as follows. The table related to the participant information is given below: In the study, we compiled a diary written by a permanent classroom teacher working for 13 years in the first year of her duty as a principal authority teacher to express present conditions and circumstances with the belief that it would guide her in her professional life. We also attempted to describe her way of entering the profession of teaching, her attitudes toward the profession, the difficulties she faced and her struggle with these difficulties in her emotional world in the most explicit way possible. Then, interviews were conducted regarding today's viewpoint of the profession and the changes from past to present and they were given in the results section.

Case Study
A It was the first time she ever wanted to look at the people around. Were all these people sitting here going to be a teacher four years later? Suddenly she felt respect for them. She thought that she needed to be careful in her manners and talking. Every single person in that classroom would be great people some days. Just like her primary school teacher… But she would never be a teacher. She was going to take the exams once again the following year and study law anywhere.
Her family discouraged her from studying in another city due to financial reasons. Moreover, her father forbade her to go to any course and even study at home because he knew how stubborn she was and that she would get into any school as long as she desired. Even though her mother was afraid of her husband, she wished to support her daughter to not depend on others just like her. However, she didn't exactly know where to start. What if her husband reacted more when she insisted on her daughter to study?
On top of that, she would suffer herself as well. To the father, a daughter meant ill fate… Although he was coming from a modern family, he still thought so. His sisters were also an ill fate to him. Actually, as a son, he couldn't gain the attention he had expected… He neither sat at a table with his family nor gathered with them. That's why he raised his daughter that way.
Her mother decided to work as a day laborer in her hometown and save some money and send her daughter to a course… There was no other option for the girl. She only took the scholarship exams for the course and won a little discount. Finally, she was able to enroll in the course and get a mark which was sufficient for her to go to a law school with great struggle, both inside and outside… But this time her father listed the schools she was allowed to go to. She asked her mother, in secret, if she could choose other schools first. Because all the departments on the list were teaching departments and she would not be a teacher… Her mother, whom she had constantly been supported even in secret so far, could not respond to her daughter as she was afraid of her husband because she knew what would happen afterward. The father would forgive neither his daughter nor his wife.
Then, it happened in the blinking of an eye. She found herself in the faculty of education, floor 3 and class 304. She was going to become a teacher four years later, although she couldn't accept it. She took the list that her father had written off her pocket and stared at it. All those years she had gone to school with great difficulties on her own and never left her room. Her desire to study law was probably a kind of reaction or a rebellion against her father… If she realized her rights and supported equality and justice, then no one could do anything to her. Not even her father… Her father couldn't understand why his daughter wished to go to a law school so much. To him, teaching was the best profession for a woman. She would work part-time and be free for the rest of the day at home. What could be better than this? When the exam placement results came, she locked herself in her room and talked to no one for a week. That time her father knew something was wrong. His daughter just wanted to get away from that house and stand on her legs. He thought that it was nonsense because his daughter couldn't live on her own, just like all other women in the world. The best way for her was to acquire her profession as quickly as possible and then marry someone. However, he didn't consider the possibility that his daughter would never talk to him for a while… That was the way love and respect were. You could take a horse to water but you couldn't make him drink.
Then she heard a rich voice from a teacher who never looked at their face. Had he been reluctant about the profession of teaching, too? After introducing himself, he asked everyone -in turn-how high their marks were, which department they wished to choose and how they decided to come to the faculty of education. Suddenly she felt excited. It was a little hard for her to explain the situation. Indeed, it would not be proper to tell him how she disliked the profession… The first few people stated that they had considered other departments but had to choose this department because their mark was insufficient. Yet still they were satisfied with assignment and working conditions and were also happy that they would be a teacher. She never believed in fairy tales… There was no way for a princess to kiss a frog and the frog to turn into a prince. Indeed, it was a shame. However, she wished that her father had kissed her on her heart at least once. She could be the best girl teacher in the world. She couldn't say anything again… Although she promised herself not to remember and mention bad memories from her childhood, she sat at her desk with the intention of writing something different and ended up writing her story, which was something she knew the best."

Her Current Views on the Profession of Teaching
When she was asked how she felt after reading her memories again in today's conditions, she said; When she was asked whether she would have chosen the profession of teaching this time on her own free will, had she been reborn, she said;

Discussion, Conclusion and Suggestions
Increasing interest in organizational culture has led to the development of different theories, models and frameworks aiming to explain the organizational culture and its impact on and importance for institutions have often been investigated (Hall, 1976;Hofstede, et al, 1990;Sagiv and Schwartz, 2007;Schein, 1985). It is seen that an organization consists of four dimensions. They are goal, structure, process and climate (atmosphere) (Bursalioglu, 2002): 1. Goal: constitutes the organization's reason for being. Duties of an organization usually include goal-oriented actions. The goals of organization are grounded on values and they might be implicit and explicit. Explicit goals are formal and general, whereas implicit goals are informal and individual. 2. Structure: consists of components. For structure to become a whole system, it is required to connect and integrate all its components. Components of the organization such as tasks, hierarchy, status and workflow can be considered within the scope of this dimension.

Process:
consists of factors like decisionmaking, planning, organization, coordination, communication, leadership and inspection. 4. Climate (atmosphere): is a product of interpersonal and intergroup relations. Thus, interpersonal relations and group dynamics are of prime importance in educational institutions. Because these organizations operate in a more informal structure and atmosphere than other organizations. The two most important factors playing a role in school climate are teachers and administrators (Bursalioglu, 2002). In this respect, it is crucial to keep organizational bonds of especially village teachers, who work as single teachers in distant regions, strong and to make teachers in crowded schools permanent and determined in terms of creating and sustaining a teaching culture.
In another study investigating the reasons for teacher burnout in newly qualified teachers who leave school before even beginning their teaching career, a survey was applied to teachers without teaching experience. Five reasons were determined for burnout as job satisfaction, school policies, workload, future expectations and relations with parents. The results demonstrated that insufficient future expectations were the primary reason for burnout. The effect of teaching experience, along with the effect of sex or teaching proficiency was found to be significant for many goals. Experienced teachers did not underestimate their quit decision (Struyven & Vanthournout, 2014). Because it is suggested that internal motivation factors which sustain the profession of teaching have a structure that increases organizational commitment automatically, making it impossible to leave the profession, however, it is necessary to provide psychological, sociological and above all, physical (tangible, labor force, etc.) support especially to teachers who are newly assigned and work in disadvantageous areas. It is required to eliminate disadvantages that might be experienced, especially by female teachers working as a single teacher and expand study areas on this issue.
In another study examining motivations of preservice teachers to continue their teaching career mainly from a multidimensional aspect, it was found that motivations of preservice teachers were contextualized and individualized. The participants displayed a complex combination of different motivational factors and these motivations interacted with participants' perceptions, expectations and attitudes regarding teaching as a career. It was found that there were minor differences between teaching motivations of those choosing teaching as a primary or secondary career (Wang, 2019). In many studies, the decision of teaching has been given in the context of being aware of both positive and compelling aspects of the profession. What is remarkable here is the tendency to trust perceived internal teaching rewards (such as pleasure and satisfaction, perceiving the profession as divine) to resist negative thoughts or explanations about teaching as a career, in the light of interview data, and to develop organizational commitment. In this respect, it is possible to state that they have feelings of organizational commitment and organizational culture belonging right after beginning their profession (including single teachers), even if these factors are not the primary reason to choose the profession of teaching. Also, it is seen that they suffer from organizational loneliness which is however, recovered by internal motivations.
As a consequence, based on this study; the researchers can investigate 1) general motivation patterns of preservice teachers for teaching, 2) comparison of career motivations of those who choose to teach as a primary or secondary career, and 3) how these motivations are associated with student teachers' perception of the teaching profession as a career, values, expectations and attitudes and how they contribute to the development of their identity as a teacher. Discussing and understanding these issues in theory and practice may enable future teachers to achieve their professional goals and sustain their morale and desire for the profession of teaching by assessing important practical impacts to employ teachers, choose determined brains in particular and make qualified candidates permanent.