Cognitive and Psychosocial Characteristics upon Entry into Teacher Training: Are Teacher Candidates Underestimated?

In public debate on the teaching profession, it is sometimes suggested that people who choose to become teachers have unfavorable cognitive and psychosocial profiles, as a result of which some teachers are unlikely to succeed in their work. However, few studies have empirically investigated this theory of negative selection effects in the cognitive and psychosocial characteristics of future teachers. Drawing on data from a longitudinal study with over 2000 college-bound students in Baden-Wurttemberg ("Transformation of the Secondary School System and Academic Careers," TOSCA; Koller, Watermann, Trautwein & Ludtke, 2004), this article compares the cognitive abilities, vocational interests, and personality characteristics of teacher candidates with those of students of other degree programs and investigates the predictive validity of these characteristics for the choice of degree program. The results show that there is no empirical evidence for a general negative selection in terms of teacher candidates' cognitive and psychosocial characteristics. However, closer inspection of the teacher candidates by school type (academic-track Gymnasium vs. all other school types) reveals negative selection within the group, with those aspiring to teach in primary and special schools, vocational-track Hauptschule, and intermediate-track Realschule showing lower cognitive ability than future Gymnasium teachers. Vocational interests proved particularly predictive for the choice of degree program; the choice of a teacher training program was most strongly predicted by a pronounced social orientation.