Teachers' Cost Beliefs as Predictors of Job Satisfaction and Career Intentions

• In Event: Teacher Motivation and Implications for Teacher Outcomes: Diverse Theoretical and Methodological Approaches

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical Framework
Teacher attrition rates continue to be an issue in the United States especially among early-career teachers and in high-poverty schools (Guin, 2004; Ingersoll & Smith, 2004). As teacher attrition contributes to teacher shortages, schools often compensate by hiring inexperienced teachers, increasing class sizes, or limiting course offerings, which have been shown to negatively affect student learning (Sutcher et al., 2019). Research has shown that motivational factors (e.g., self-efficacy) are important determinants of teacher attrition and commitment to the profession (Chestnut & Burley, 2015; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2016). However, most research on motivational predictors of teacher attrition has focused on the idea that positive teacher beliefs such as value for the profession or self-efficacy to teach effectively can reduce teachers’ likelihood of attrition. We know relatively little about how teachers’ perceptions of the negative aspects of engaging in teaching, known as cost (Eccles-Parsons et al., 1983), might influence their intentions to remain in teaching. The purpose of the present study was to examine the association between teachers’ cost beliefs, their perceived job satisfaction, and their career intentions.

Method
163 K-12 teachers (80% female; 88% White; see Table 1) completed an online survey that measured four dimensions of teachers’ cost perceptions (task effort, outside effort, loss of valued alternatives, emotional; Flake et al., 2015). We measured value for teaching, three dimensions of teaching self-efficacy (instructional strategies, classroom management, student engagement), job satisfaction and career intentions. We also collected demographic information (see Table 1).
Using multiple linear regression, we predicted job satisfaction and intentions to leave the profession from teachers’ perceptions of cost, perceptions of task value, and perceived self-efficacy to teach effectively. We included interactions between teachers’ perceptions of cost and their years of teaching to explore whether cost was a more salient determinant of any outcomes for early-career teachers. Because research has shown that different dimensions of cost predict motivation differently (Perez et al., 2014), we ran separate models for each of the four cost dimensions.

Results
All four dimensions of cost negatively predicted job satisfaction (see Table 2), with outside effort and emotional cost also negatively predicting intentions to remain in the profession (see Table 3). The negative relationship between perceived outside effort cost and job satisfaction was stronger for teachers with over five years of experience compared to less than five years of experience; the same pattern was found for emotional cost.

Authors

• Patrick Neil Beymer, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Emily Q. Rosenzweig, University of Georgia

• Annette Ponnock