Teachers Who Stay: A Serendipitous Finding

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 1:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Leadership, Wellbeing, and Retention

Abstract

Poor teacher retention has been shown to negatively impact students' educational achievement. Compared to any other aspect of schooling, teachers have the most significant impact on student achievement. In a previous study, conducted with teacher residents in high-needs schools the retention threshold of teacher residents was rather low. However, it was noted that some Teacher Resident alumni had stayed in their high-need school jobs for several years. We studied how these teachers experienced their work; an additional component in teacher retention came to light, specifically job satisfaction. The present study is informed and framed by existing literature about teacher retention and seeks to add the dimension of teacher job satisfaction to Mason & Poyatos Matas’ (2015) theoretical framework for teacher retention.

Author

• Sheila R. Vaidya, Drexel University