Choosing the PGDE: Influences and motivations amongst students with and without widening participation indicators

Education as a field of study, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, attracts students from socially diverse backgrounds at a high level relative to most other fields of study. This includes a relatively high percentage of students who have background characteristics commonly recognised as widening participation indicators.

This project aims to identify the factors which motivated graduates both with and without widening participation indicators to enter the PGDE Primary and Secondary programmes at Edinburgh University. Specifically the project aims to provide evidence through a survey of current PGDE students with regard to:

• The attributes, social background and first degree background of PGDE students;
• When PGDE students decided to train as a teacher;
• Their reasons for deciding to train as a teacher;
• Who influenced their decision to train as a teacher;
• Whether these factors differ in relation to student characteristics that indicate that they were widening participation students when they entered their first degree.