Perception of teaching as a profession and UB teacher trainees’ attitude towards training programme and teaching

Though the professionalism of teaching is still a debatable issue, teaching provides an indispensible service to every society and civilization. The service provided by teaching seems to be more indispensible to any society than services provided by any other profession. To those that teach, the way they perceive themselves and the value of their services tend to make a lot of difference. The study looked at the influence that such perception by teacher trainees in UB has on their attitude towards their training programme (TTP) as well as towards teaching generally. A statistical analysis of data from a quantitative survey of 73 UB teacher trainees with a 54 closed-ended validated Likert-type items showed that in the perception of UB teacher trainees, teaching is a profession and this view is significantly stronger among female than male teacher trainees. Their level of perception of teaching as a profession has significant influence on their motivation to do well in their teacher training programme (TTP); attitude towards their teacher training programme (AtTTP), the value they attached to the programme (VaTTP); and their perception of the effectiveness of the programme (ETTP). Similarly, the level to which they perceived teaching as a profession has a significantly positive influence on their willingness to teach (WtT); attitude toward teaching (AtT) and the level to which they perceive teaching as a stereotypes career (STC). Generally, the higher their perception of teaching as a profession, the higher is their attitude towards their TTP as well as towards teaching in general. The findings were discussed, implications drawn and recommendations made.


INTRODUCTION
Teaching provides an indispensible service to every society and civilization. The service provided by teaching seems to be more indispensible to any society than services provided by any other profession. In many respect the teaching profession is a nation builder and sometimes it is referred as the mother of all professions. It is given such accolade through its ability to produce well rounded individuals who will in turn promote best *Corresponding author. E-mail: hjnenty@yahoo.com. Tel. -Office +267-3552411, +267-712-71114.
Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License practices, unlock many doors for our prosperity and attract much needed international investment and expertise. The Botswana Government also recognizes this in the white paper (1994), The success of any education system depends largely on teachers. They are the catalyst of the learning process and on them mainly rests the whole system. They are therefore crucial in the strategy to achieve a more effective and responsive education system (p.4).
Teaching has been dubbed the mother of all professions and history has confirmed this over the centuries. In Botswana in particular, teaching was the main profession at independence in 1966, no wonder the Botswana Cabinet then consisted largely of teachers. Overtime however, varying professions nurtured by teaching proliferated, organized themselves, and bargained for superior conditions (Tau, 2014). As a result of the modesty of teachers and the otherwise sluggish response to the referred developments, the teaching profession has arguably lost the respect, reverence and dignity it was associated with in the earlier years. More often, the public hardly talk of any well-defined and widely accepted ethics of the teaching profession that would have otherwise galvanized the teachers. Consequently teachers have lost grip on the struggle to determine their destiny.
According to the British Department of Education (2010), The first, and most important, lesson is that no education system can be better than the quality of its teachers. The most successful countries, from the Far East to Scandinavia, are those where teaching has the highest status as a profession; South Korea recruits from their top 5 per cent of graduates and Finland from the top 10 per cent (p. 3)

Background Professionalism and attitude towards teaching
Professionals including teaching fraternity need to be equipped with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to enhance learning in a fast changing environment. According to Desimone (2009), professionals in teaching should evolve over research which lead to a more thorough understanding of the factors that contribute to effective teacher professional development and effective education, like: (1) research on teachers' knowledge of, skills in, and attitudes towards formal and informal collaborative, inquiry based, and contextualized education; (2) development and evaluation of programs, interventions, and tools that foster collaborative, inquiry based, and contextualized learning, with a specific focus on teacher performance and the effects of this performance on students' learning. Thus, in order to stimulate and assess effective professional development (in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes) and its impact on, for instance, students' knowledge acquisition, creative or inquiry thinking, or attitudes and motivations, these concepts first need to be well defined and elaborated on (ELAN, 2014).
Among the factors that make teaching a profession are autonomous and trust. That is, teaching is an autonomous profession because it is concerned with the effects of central control on teachers' professionalism. The second factor, teaching as a trusted profession as it combines statements about trust, integrity, and the desirability of having an influential and independent professional body for all teachers, with those teachers evaluating their work, using their professional judgment and directing other staff in the classroom (Hargreaves et al., 2006). Mainly through case studies, teachers are also involved in creating the knowledge that drives their functioning as professionals.
Teachers' professional knowledge and actual practices may differ not only among countries but also among teachers within a country. To gain an understanding of the prevalence of certain beliefs and practices it is therefore important to examine how they relate to the characteristics of teachers and classrooms. It is even more relevant to look at the impact on teachers' beliefs, practices and attitudes of professional background factors such as type of training, certification and professional development, subject taught, employment status (part-time versus full-time) and length of tenure. It is important to note that any of these relationships can have different causal interpretations (OECD, 2009).
Explicitly, true contribution to the advancement of theory and practice of teacher professional development, is better guided by combination of different parts (1) how do professionals learn, what constitutes teachers' attitudes towards education or inquiry learning; (2) The development, implementation, and evaluation of new interventions (e.g., which interventions, methods, or tools have the desired effects on both teachers and learners); (3) The development and validation of a variety of measurement instruments and methods that assess pedagogical content knowledge, skills, and attitudes of both teachers and students (ELAN, 2014). This study tackles teacher trainees' aspect of this task in terms of attitude towards their training programme and teaching itself.

Problem of the study
To all professionals, the way they perceive themselves and the value of their services tend to influence their efficiency and hence productivity. For teachers, such perception is influenced by the views of the public about teaching. A teacher tends to be psychologically handicapped by public perception of the value of his/her service. Teachers tend to be humbled by the psychological pressure put on them by the feeling that, despite their irreplaceable service, their career is not regarded as a profession by the public. According to Nenty (2010), pressure emanating from negative views from the public of teaching as a career by the society tends to reduce the amount of affective and cognitive investments on teaching and learning by teachers and teacher trainees. Such views tend to kill the aspiration and inspirational stamina of teachers. A situational analysis of Botswana education system has noted that there is a challenge of poor quality teachers, as practicing teachers do not get equitable treatment when it comes to teacher training and professional development (Kgalemang, 2015). The situation needs urgent attention. The report indicates that the issue is compounded by inadequate provision of teacher training related to the new curriculum resulting in teachers often not being in a good position to implement the curriculum properly. This is an immense challenge which reflects that teaching profession in Botswana within the context of the teacher developments. As an attempt to address the challenge, it is important to investigate into teaching as a profession as perceived by teacher trainees.

Purpose of the study
Taking the account the problem identified, this study aims at determining the extent to which UB education students deem teaching as a profession and the influence such perception has on teaching.

Research questions
The study is tasked to find answers to the following research questions: 1. To what extent do the UB teacher trainees perceive teaching as a profession? 2. To what extent do UB teacher trainees' perception of teaching as a profession influences their attitude towards their training programme and teaching?

Research hypotheses
To answer these research questions, the following null hypothesis were tested: 1. UB teacher trainees do not significantly perceive Nenty et al. 2799 teaching to be a profession.
2. There is no significant gender influence in the level to which teachers perceived teaching as a profession.
3. The level to which teacher trainees' perceive teaching as a profession does not significantly influence their: (i) motivation to achieve in teacher training programme.
(ii) attitude towards teacher training programme.
(iii) value for their teacher training programme. iv). perception of the effectiveness of the teacher training programme (v). their willingness to teach. vi) attitude towards teaching. vii).the level to which they perceive teaching as a stereotyped career.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Teaching as a profession has been studied at different perspective. Hargreaves et al. (2006) studied the teachers, trainee teachers and other associated groups who responded to a questionnaires on the teacher status which had a number of special features, including the range of perspectives on status that it has investigated, and the way in which it has attempted to find a definition of high professional status, and used that to examine perceptions of the status of the teaching profession. It showed that there are still large differences between the teaching profession and those professions judged to have high status in terms of reward and respect and as control and regulation. Teachers, trainee teachers and associated groups see the teaching profession as virtually on a par with a high status profession in terms of the training, responsibility and performance that teaching requires. Peter and Peter (2011) carried out an interview-based qualitative study in Malawi concerning with the recruitment of secondary teachers. The study revealed a range of perspectives for pursuing a teacher training course: failure to follow a desired career, springboard to other careers, to upgrade, and teaching out of vocation. It also showed that trainee teachers held a range of images about teaching: its ability to enhance knowledge; low pay with no incentives, low status profession, and lack of trust of male trainee teachers. They then made some recommendation among is that teacher educators and policy makers need to consider the perspectives of trainer teachers to reduce resource wastage and support trainee teachers appropriately. Babu and Raju (2013) conducted a study to examine the attitude of student teachers towards their profession. The study was conducted on a sample of 437 student teachers studying in 7 colleges of education in Vizianagaram District (India) among them 239 were males and 198 females and methodology wise 143 were in mathematics, 48 physical sciences, 134 biological sciences and 112 social studies subject student teachers. They were administered self-constructed tool (teachers attitude) developed by the investigators. The tool consisting of 60 items with 7 areas viz. professional problems, teachers' pay scales, vacancies and other privileges, nature of work and workload, teachers interest towards pupils, teachers attitude towards management and professional status of teachers.
The collected data were analyzed for the mean and standard deviations, and t-test analysis was done to tests various hypotheses. Significant gender differences as well as differences across subjects were observed. Male and female student teachers were differed significantly in attitude towards the teaching profession. Male and female student teachers were differed significantly in the areas of professional problems, teachers' pay scales, vacations and other privileges, teachers' interest towards pupils, teachers' attitude towards management and professional status of teachers in their attitude towards the teaching profession. Student teachers belong to different subjects differed significantly in their attitude towards teaching (Babu and Raju, 2013).
In another study focused on the views of the 58 teacher trainees who have recently started the teaching profession on teacher training process. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the views of the teacher trainees on the process of teacher training in Turkey. The findings of the study revealed that the teacher trainees felt insufficient especially related to curriculum and content knowledge and that teaching practice and school experience courses do not adequately contribute to their profession (Oguz et al., 2013).
In another study, Marina-Stefania et al. (2011) dealt with path analysis study using data from a longitudinal study investigating the experiences of trainee and early career phase teachers in England. The data were generated via self-complete questionnaires and follow-up telephone interviews with 1,322 trainees. Those on undergraduate or school-based programmes felt better prepared to work as teachers than one-year postgraduate trainees, perhaps because the former give higher ratings of the quality of assessment of, and feedback received on, teaching practice, and because of the clarity of theory-practice links in programmes.
Across different kinds of initial teacher preparation (ITP) programme revealed a good relationships with school-based mentors significantly boosted trainees' confidence that their ITP had effectively prepared them for teaching. Trainees' motives for entering the profession and their initial concerns about and expectations of ITP also affected their perceptions of its effectiveness, by shaping the way they experienced aspects of their courses. Implications of these findings for policy and practice in teacher preparation are discussed (Marina-Stefania et al., 2011). Sahayarani and Stanly (2014) study aimed at identify the attitude towards teaching profession of B.Ed. trainees and difference between the sub-samples of the students in respect of their attitude towards teaching profession. The investigators have randomly selected 104 students from four different colleges of education in Pondicherry as sample. Results revealed significant different in attitude towards teaching profession in the subcategories sex, subject and locality. They concluded that the attitudinal change towards teaching should be the focus point in the teacher training programmes.

METHODOLOGY
This is a survey inferential study in design conducted to capture and analyzed the perceptions of University of Botswana, education students regarding teaching as a profession. Data were randomly collected from total of 73 education students toward the end of second semester 2014/2015. Out of the sampled 73 students, 38 were Post graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) and while 34 were Bachelor of Education students. One participant failed to indicate his/her academic status. Among them were 57 females and 16 males without specified sampling frame.
Questionnaire was used to collect data. It is consisted of two parts. The first part-Part I had five items demanded for the demographic information of students. Part II with 53 Likert-type items with six options -from 'very strongly agree' through 'very strongly disagree'was developed. Additional two items were included to demand students to state his or her overall grade in the last semester and the expected grade at the end of the next semester. Face-validated of items was by three colleagues in the area of assessment. Thus looked into every item to find out whether they were measuring what it supposed to measure in relation to the operationalized indicators of students perception to teaching as a professional. Negatively worded items were scored in the reverse direction. A Cronbach alpha analysis of the reliability of the measurement of the variables involved in the study showed that for motivation to achieve in teacher training programme with 3 items, alpha was .408; attitude toward teacher training programme with 10 items, alpha was .869; value of teacher training programme with 6 items, alpha was .501; willingness to teach with 13 items, alpha was .718; attitude towards teaching with 4 items, alpha was .589 and effectiveness of the training programme with 5 items, alpha was .603. These are acceptable reliable coefficients that indicate that the instrument is reliable hence it can be used to collect data.

ANALAYSIS OF DATA AND INTERPRETATION OF THE RESULTS
The data collected for each hypothesis were analyzed using the statistical Package of the Social Science (SPSS) version 21. The first null hypothesis, dealt with the perception of students' teacher towards professionalism that was UB teacher trainees do not significantly perceives teaching to be a profession. In an attempt of answering this null hypothesis a one sample ttest was done. That is comparison between a single mean of the sample with the sample population mean. The finding (M = 26.94, SD = 4.90, n = 55) revealed that in a t-value of t (54) = 8.991, p < .000, hence the null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative hypothesis (see Table 1) was retained. This implies that teacher trainees significantly perceive teaching as a profession (Table 1).
When it came to gender influence on the level to which teachers perceived teaching as a profession, an independent t-test analysis done to test the second hypothesis showed that females (M = 27.63, SD = 4.59) significantly (t = 2.45, df = 53, p = .018) more than males (M = 23.44, SD = 5.24) perceive teaching as a profession. So there is a significant gender influence in the level to which UB teacher trainees perceive teaching as a profession. Females perceive teaching as a profession significantly more than males.
The rest of the six null hypotheses were together posited that the level to which UB teacher trainee perceive teaching as a professional does not significantly influence their (1) Motivation to achieve in teacher training programme, (2) attitude toward teacher training programme, (3) value of teacher training programme, (4) willingness to teach, (5) attitude towards teaching and (6) effectiveness of the training programme. In answering of all the six hypotheses, one way analysis of variance were conducted test dependent variables against independence variable in which UB teacher trainees perceive teaching as a profession (Table 2). A One-way ANOVA was considered suitable for the analysis because the six dependent variables were measured at the interval level, whereas the independent variable, level to which UB teacher trainees perceived teaching as a professional, was categorical with three levels.
For the first dependent variable on the list, perceived level of motivation to achieve in teacher training programme, the ANOVA showed significant (F = 5.87, p < .005) result. This implies that of the level to which UB teacher trainees perceive teaching as be being a profession significantly influences their motivation to achieve in the teacher training programme (TTP). The significant of the F-value led to a post hoc analysis using least significant difference (LSD) method. It was found that teacher trainees with high level of perception of teaching as a profession differed significantly (p < .004) in their motivation to achieve in their training programme from those with average and low level of perception of teaching as a profession. In other words, the more UB teacher trainees perceive teaching as a profession the more is he/she is motivated to succeed in their TTP For attitude towards the teacher trainee programme, the analysis revealed a significant influence (F = 5.53, p < .007) of the level to which teaching is perceived as being a profession on the attitude towards the teacher trainee programme. This led to rejecting the null hypothesis and retaining the alternative hypothesis, thus the level to which teacher trainees' perceive teaching as a profession does significantly influence their attitude towards teacher training programme. The significance of the F-value prompted a post hoc (LSD) analysis which showed that teacher trainees with high level of perception of teaching as a profession differed significantly (p < .002) from those who had an average and a low level of perception of teaching as a profession in their attitude towards teacher training programme respectively. Generally, the analyses revealed that the higher the level of perception of teaching as a profession, the more favourable the attitude towards the teacher training programme is. That is to say, the more a UB teacher trainee perceives teaching as a profession the more favourable is his/her attitude towards their TTP For the value of the teacher trainee programme, the analysis again showed significant influence (F = 7.51, p < .001) of the level to which teaching is perceived as being a profession on the value teacher trainees attached to their training programme. Given the significance of the Fvalue, a post hoc analysis using the LSD method was done. This analysis showed that those with high level of perception of teaching as a profession differed significantly (p < .000) from those who perceive average and low level of perception of teaching as a profession in the value they attached to their teacher trainee programme. The general trend showed that the higher the level of perception of teaching as a profession, the higher the value the teacher trainees attached to their training programme. In other words, the more a UB teacher trainee perceives teaching as a profession the more valuable he/she sees their TTP.
In the case of effectiveness of their training programme, the analysis showed significant (F = 15.49, p < .000) influence of the level to which teaching is perceived as being a profession on their perception of the effectiveness of the training programme. Given the significant F-value, a post hoc analysis using the LSD method was done. This analysis showed that those with high level of perception of teaching as a profession perceived their training programme significantly (p < .000) more effective than those with average and low level of perception. Similarly, those with average level of perception of teaching as a profession also differed significantly with those with low perception. Generally, the trend showed that the higher the level of perception of teaching as a profession, the higher the perception of the teacher trainees as being effective. That is to say, the more a UB teacher trainee perceives teaching as a profession the more effective he/she perceives their TTP to be. For willingness to teach, the analysis showed significant (F = 19.75, p < .000) influence of the level to which teaching is perceived as being a profession on willingness to teach. Given the significant of the F-value, a post hoc analysis using the LSD method was done. This analysis revealed high level of teaching as a profession differed significantly (p < .001) with those who perceive average and low level of teaching as profession in their perception of the willingness to teach respectively. Generally, the analyses revealed that the higher the level of perception of teaching as a profession, the higher the willingness to teach.
For attitude towards teaching the analysis resulted in a significant F value (F= 6.08, p < .004) which led to rejection of the null hypothesis. In other words, it implies that the level to which teacher trainees' perceive teaching as a profession has a significant influence their attitude towards teaching. The significant of the F-value prompted LSD analysis which showed high level of teaching as a profession differed (p < .002) with those who perceive average and low level of teaching as profession in their perception of attitude towards teaching. Thus the analysis showed that the higher the level of perception of teaching as a profession, the higher the favourable attitude to teaching. Lastly, for the perceived level to which teaching is stereotyped, the analysis showed significant (F =7.48, p < .001) influence of the level to which teaching is perceived as being profession on the perceived level to which teaching is stereotyped. Given the significant of the F-value, a post hoc analysis using the LSD method was done. This analysis showed that teacher trainees who have a high level of perception of teaching as a profession differed significantly (p < .001) with those who have an average and low perception of teaching as a profession in their perception of teaching as a stereotyped career. Generally, the analyses revealed that the higher the level of perception of teaching as a profession, the higher its perception as a stereotyped career.

Summary of findings
The findings of the study showed that in the perception of UB teacher trainees, teaching is a profession and this view is significantly stronger among female than male teacher trainees. Their level of perception of teaching as a profession has significant influence on their motivation to do well in their teacher training programme (TTP); attitude towards their teacher training programme (AtTTP), the value they attached to the programme (VaTTP); and their perception of the effectiveness of the programme (ETTP). Similarly, the level to which they perceived teaching as a profession has a significantly positive influence on their willingness to teach (WtT); attitude toward teaching (AtT) and the level to which they perceive teaching as a stereotypes career (STC). Generally, the higher their perception of teaching as a profession, the higher is their attitude towards their teacher training programme as well as towards teaching.

DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Considering teaching as a profession by teacher trainees, it is an imperative perception which enriches psychologically the working environment for a teacher. It boosts teachers' cognitive ability and affective disposition which empowers improvement through innovative teaching and learning by teacher trainers and the teacher trainees. Given a conducive psychological environmental afforded other careers as professions, teachers will be seen as exhibiting specialized skills in the development of human resource for the betterment of our society. The findings of this study corroborated that of Hargreaves et al. (2006) who examined the perceptions of the status of the teaching profession and revealed large differences between the teaching profession and those professions judged to have high status in terms of reward and respect and as control and regulation. Teachers, trainee teachers and associated groups saw the teaching profession as virtually on a par with a high status profession in terms of the training, responsibility and performance that teaching requires.
The Botswana government white paper (Botswana Government, 1994) view the success of any education system to depend largely on teachers. This bolsters the feeling expressed in this study by UB teacher trainees that teaching is an important profession. According to the white paper, teachers are the catalyst of the learning process and mainly on them rest the whole education system. Education holds the future of every nation, every society, none of which can rise above the quality of its education system. Such feeling underlie the value they have for their teacher training programme. They are motivated by their programme to develop highly favourable attitude towards teaching and a high level of willingness to teach. These are crucial measures which every teacher has to possess in order to achieve as professionals and hence enhance the standing of the profession. This can be attained only through an effective teacher training programme which the UB teacher trainees claim theirs is. As attested by Marina-Stefania et al. (2011)'s findings, good relationships with schoolbased mentors significantly boosted trainees' confidence and engender the feeling that their initial teacher preparation had effectively prepared them for teaching. If teacher training programme is effective, it bring along teaching as a trusted profession as it combines statements about trust, integrity, and the desirability of having an influential and independent professional body for all teachers, with those teachers evaluating their work, using their professional judgment and directing other staff in the classroom (Hargreaves et al., 2006).
Attitude of students towards teacher training programme was found to be significantly favourable especially for those who reported favourable perception of teaching as a profession. This implies that people who are recruited into the profession by UB perceive teaching as a profession and have very good attitude towards it. This tends to boost their joy and ignite some feelings of pride about being teachers. This is why, as it was found, they are highly willing to teach. With this type of feeling they are more likely than not to be productive as teachers. However the findings of a previous qualitative study by Peter and Peter (2011) were contrary to some of those in the current study which revealed that teacher trainees recruited perceive a range of perspectives for pursuing a teacher training course. These include: failure at joining a desired career, enrolling in teacher training programme as a springboard to other careers, or as a means of selfupgrading, and teaching out of vocation. It also showed that trainee teachers held a range of images about teaching: its ability to enhance knowledge; low pay with no incentives, low status profession, and lack of trust of male trainee teachers. Despite these contrary findings, teaching as a profession like many philosophers put it, that remains the mother of all professions.
Given UB teacher trainees, the findings of this study are reassuring and tend to deflate the problem of teachers being 'psychologically handicapped by public perception of the value of their services' which was the concern of the study, to begin with. In the first place, UB teacher trainees do not agree with the public view that teaching is not a profession and the implications of this do not seem to have any influence on their professional development, their emotional feelings about their training programme and about teaching in general.
Following these, UB and other teacher educators and policy makers need to embrace the qualities of effective teacher training geared towards professional development for effective education. This calls for educating teacher trainees not only cognitively, but more also behaviourally, affectively or emotionally to develop some level of psychological robustness against emotional sideattractions that may impair their determination to imbibe the characteristics of good professionals.