The Career Choice of Certified Kindergarten Teachers Who were Graduated from Universities with Kindergarten Teacher Education Program

[[abstract]]My motivation to this research derives from my curiosity about direction of my career choices. At present, the environment for childhood development is not mature in Taiwan and there are only few job vacancies in public kindergartens. Besides, the salaries for those teachers in private kindergartens normally fail to meet the general expectation and so does the working environment. Even though those factors might have negative effect on the career choice, there are still lots of teachers who make their best efforts to contribute to education. The objective of this research is to inquire certified kindergarten teachers career choices and the factors that affect them to make career decisions. Although there have been some studies on the subject of career choices, most of them focus on the career choices of those teachers graduating from the Department of Early Childhood Education in Universities of Education, and only a few focus on the career choices of Those certified kindergarten teachers who graduated from universities with kindergarten teacher education program. In my research, I have interviewed four kindergarten teachers who graduated from universities with kindergarten teacher education program. I have collected documents in order to understand their experiences in career choices. With these data, I am trying to find out possible explanations for their motivations to take the kindergarten teacher education program, and their present working status. The results of this research are： 1.The career choices of certified kindergarten teachers who graduated from university with kindergarten teacher education program are different from each other. Their career paths are influenced by their varied experiences before taking the kindergarten teacher education program and their proceeding working experiences. As a result, the career choices have different meanings for each of them. 2.The factors that influence certified kindergarten teachers who graduated from university with kindergarten teacher education program about the career choice are： （1）Family member, individual interests, working experiences before entering the program are the factors that influence certified kindergarten teachers to attend the kindergarten teacher education program. (2)In working periods, there are many factors that cause them to change their jobs or move to other kindergartens. In order to continue growing in labor market, certified kindergarten teachers have to maintain their interests, education belief, and professional abilities. At the same time, the working environment that provides suitable conditions is also crucial for the career development of certified kindergarten teachers. Keyword: career choices, kindergarten teacher