OGUNJIMI, MayowaDARAMOLA, Dorcas2018-12-032018-12-0320172616-1311http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1344Abstract The primary education stage places emphasis on developing the whole child and hence, the need to train dedicated and competent primary education professional teachers. Therefore, this study examines the motivational influences and career aspirations of pre-service teachers of primary education in Lagos State tertiary institutions. The study is a descriptive research design. The population of the study consists of all pre-service primary education teachers in Lagos State tertiary institutions while a sample of 300 pre-service teachers were randomly selected by ballot across the tertiary institutions. The Pre-Service Teachers’ Motivational Influences and Career Aspirations Questionnaire”(PTMICAQ) was developed and used for data collection. The Cronbach Alpha reliability value of the instrument is 0.81. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions while Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and Analysis of Variance were used to test the stated hypotheses. The findings of the study revealed that counseling by people around and family members is the most significant motivational influence of pre-service teachers of primary education while the highly rated career aspiration is finding stable economic security in teaching. A significant relationship was established between motivational influences and career aspirations of pre-service teachers. The result also shows that there is no significant difference in the motivational influences and career aspirations of pre-service primary education teachers on the basis of gender and level of teachers’ education. It was recommended that pre-service teachers’ motivational factors in choosing teaching profession should influence the way tertiary institutions prepare and plan their curricula. The institutions should increase the number of developmental programmes and develop career counseling strategies to enhance pre-service teachers self efficacy in several aspects of teaching profession.enMotivational InfluencesCareer AspirationPre-Service teachersTeaching professionArticle