Why Do Teachers Quit? An Investigation of the Influence of School Environment and Teacher Characteristics on Discontent and Attrition
Genre
Thesis/DissertationDate
2011Author
Moore, Cara M.Advisor
Jordan, Will J.Committee member
Davis, James Earl, 1960-Stahler, Gerald
Cromley, Jennifer
Schifter, Catherine
Department
Urban EducationSubject
EducationGeneral
Education Policy
School Climate
School Environment
Teacher Attrition
Teacher Dissatisfaction
Teacher Mobility
Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/1952Metadata
Show full item recordDOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/1934Abstract
Teacher attrition is a widespread problem in the United States and is most severe in urban and rural schools. High rates of teacher attrition and discontent contribute to budget problems and decreased educational school quality. The purpose of this study is to examine how a variety of environmental factors and teacher background characteristics contribute to teacher attrition and discontent. The school system along with the relationship between teacher background and school organization will be considered. The core research questions guiding this study are: To what degree do school environmental factors and teacher background characteristics explain teachers' discontent and ultimate attrition? What is the relationship between teacher discontent and departure? Logistic regression was used to analyze data from the School and Staffing Survey and the Teacher Follow-up Survey collected by the National Center for Education Statistics to answer the research questions. Significant predictors that increased the odds of teacher discontent include: middle school setting, urban locale, rural locale, teacher perceptions of student problems, and teacher perception of community problems. Significant predictors that decreased the odds of teacher discontent include: school salary, highly qualified status, union membership, classroom control, and principal/colleague support. Predictors that increased the odds of teacher attrition include: certification type, school size, rural locale, teacher perceptions of student problems, and classroom control. Predictors that decreased the odds of teacher attrition include: teacher race and ethnicity, highly qualified status, and minority student enrollment.ADA compliance
For Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation, including help with reading this content, please contact scholarshare@temple.eduCollections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
AN EXAMINATION OF THE VALIDITY OF TEACHER RATINGS OF STUDENT INTERNALIZING SYMPTOMS: THE ROLE OF TEACHER STRESSThe current study examined the structural validity of a common universal screening assessment for student emotional and behavioral symptoms, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997, 2001), with the goal of identifying whether this universal screening assessment was invariant across high and low stress teacher groups. Further, teacher stress was examined as a predictor of ratings on the universal screening assessment and mean group differences were examined between school-related variables, teacher stress and ratings on the universal screening assessment. Data were collected from 1,860 teachers in the state of Pennsylvania, who were sampled online in fall 2019. The baseline model of the SDQ was tested, then the model was tested across configural, metric and scalar levels to determine whether the model was invariant as constraints were applied. Data indicated that the universal screening assessment, the SDQ, demonstrated adequate model fit that improved as measurement invariance testing continued. This suggests that the SDQ identified student internalizing and externalizing risk comparably across high and low stress teachers and may be appropriate to use to assess risk in settings where teachers are highly stressed. Additional analyses found that high stress teachers rated more behavioral and emotional symptoms overall than low stress teachers, with a small effect size. Additionally, high stress teachers rated fewer positive behaviors than low stress teachers in this study. However, this should be studied further in future research which includes nesting to account for district and school variables which may affect teacher stress. Implications regarding using findings to support teachers are discussed.
-
Cultivating Teacher Leadership in Public Secondary Schools: Encouraging the Leadership Potential in All TeachersTeacher leaders are people who lead by example and, in this school, most are not afraid to speak up even if it is not politically correct. Teacher leaders are selfless people who are looking out for what is best for all, especially the students. They are risk takers. With the introduction of technology and accountability measures, education appears to have changed more in the first seventeen years of the 21st century then in the entire prior 100 years of our nation. The knowledge and skills required by school administrators has greatly expanded. To that end, it seems most appropriate that schools are lead not only by a principal, but also by the teachers. The collective knowledge of a group of professionals is stronger than the knowledge of one individual person. Teacher leadership appears as a natural concept to utilize in order to achieve successful school reform and to increase the use of technology as an instructional tool. This study focuses on the specific actions of building principals in public secondary schools which will cultivate and nurture the leadership potential in teachers. A qualitative study, this research involved a multi-case study approach and focused on three public secondary schools spanning two Pennsylvania counties. Ninety-four surveys were conducted of professional employees. Of those, three building principals and seven of their teachers were selected to be observed and interviewed. While teacher leadership requires active steps be taken by both teachers and principals, this research centered on what the principal needs to do in order to nurture teachers to be leaders within their schools. A culture of trust and collaboration is essential, as is a shared vision of where the school is headed.
-
How Do Selected Novice Middle School Teachers from Various Certification Pathways Perceive the Effectiveness of Their Teacher Preparation?This dissertation study compared the three most common pathways of traditional preparation for novice middle level teachers (elementary, middle level, and secondary) and attempted to answer the central question of which group felt best prepared for middle level teaching. Selected novice teachers from each of the three pathways were interviewed and asked to reflect on their preparation program. All participants were graduates of the same large, urban, public university. Data were collected using an interpretivism paradigm and analyzed using the constant comparative method. The state has recently redesigned its certification structure and teacher education institutions have redesigned their programs to reflect these changes. This study sought to discover if the restructuring resulted in greater feelings of preparedness among novice teachers. This study was exploratory, but initial findings indicate that there was very little difference in feelings of preparedness among the three pathways for teaching at the middle level with respect to program components and understanding of the needs of middle level adolescents. There was limited difference among the three pathways with respect to content preparation. This poses an interesting policy question: If the state’s intent in restructuring the certification tiers was to ensure more prepared teachers for the middle level and this exploratory study shows little difference in feelings of preparation, was the decision to restructure teacher certification a worthwhile endeavor? The study offers possible programmatic changes to increase feelings of preparedness as well as ideas for further research around this topic.
