Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession

To better understand the impact of the PhysTEC Project and to help with early identification of future teachers, we are developing the survey of Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession (PTAP) to measure students’ views of teaching as a career, their interest in teaching, and the perceived climate of physics departments towards teaching as a profession. The instrument consists of a series of statements which require a response using a 5-point Likert-scale and can be easily administered online. We completed the initial development of PTAP during the Summer of 2015. Evidence of validity was collected in the form of expert review and student interviews. The survey items were drafted by a team of researchers and physics teacher candidates and then reviewed by an advisory committee drawn from PhysTEC sites. Student Interviewees included both teacher candidates and non-teaching science and engineering majors. In this workshop we will share preliminary results from the student interviews, ways to collect data at your institution as well as discuss our plans to collect data over several years.