Why doctoral graduates choose to work in primary and secondary schools and then leave the school

• In Event: Capacity Building, Collaboration, and Educator Pathways in a Global Context

Proposal

Abstract
Teaching in primary and secondary schools is a new career path for doctoral students in the context of diversified doctoral careers. However, these doctoral students chose to leave again within a few years of joining the primary and secondary schools. A qualitative study of teachers with doctoral degrees found that teaching experience, interest preferences, and career aspirations are factors that are inherent in the segregation of teachers with doctoral degrees, and Welfare benefits, job stability, space for career development and social promotion, career deterrence, influence of others, research platforms and atmosphere form the external factors for the departure of teachers with doctoral degrees.
Keywords: PHD, Primary and secondary school teachers, Choice of profession,Intention to leave
Objective
The objective is to investigate the factors influencing the choices of doctoral students entering secondary school employment and then leaving secondary school in China, and to identify the main strategies for addressing these challenges. Conducting in-depth interviews with 24 teachers holding doctoral degrees from primary and secondary schools in four prominent cities in China, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou.
Literature Review
Factors Influencing Doctoral Students' Career Choices
Research on factors influencing PhD students' career choices focuses on three aspects. Firstly, labor market conditions, including the relationship between supply and demand (Bloch et al., 2015) and career prospects (Waaijer, 2017), have an impact on doctoral students. Secondly, individuals may have a preference for specific job attributes. Thirdly, doctoral students’ career choices are impacted by their doctoral journey and learning experience, such as doctoral supervision (Curtin, et al., 2016), publishing during the doctoral period (Horta & Li 2023), discipline (Bloch et al., 2015; Waaijer 2017), and laboratory type (Germain-Alamartine et al. 2021).
Factors influencing teachers to leave schools
In existing research on individuals with higher education backgrounds choosing to become primary and secondary school teachers, some common and widely recognized reasons can be found. For example, teachers' career cycle, workload,work environment and etc. In the Chinese context, similar findings have been presented. The study has revealed that Chinese teachers generally have high turnover intentions (Fu et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2021a, 2021b), and different types of turnover intentions are associated with diverse factors (Li et al., 2019). For instance, Liu and Onwuegbuzie (2012) discovered that the intention to leave the profession was prominent among secondary school teachers, with potential reasons encompassing high stress, low salary, heavy workload, and student misbehavior.
Method
The study adopted a grounded theory approach (Strauss, 1987), where the findings informed the theories. Data consisted of a series of semi-structured interviews (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982; Lincoln & Guba, 1985) with 14 individuals (10 females, 4 males) from four first-tier cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, who held doctoral degrees, chose to work at primary and secondary schools, and then left. The extent of their teaching experience ranged from less than a few months to several years.
The data is derived from one-on-one, semi-structured interviews. In June 2024, the researcher selected and interviewed 14 teachers with PhDs based on the principle of maximum difference in teaching disciplines. Views discussed included: how respondents "saw themselves" as teachers; how and why doctoral students entered and left teaching; whether their views had changed. If so, how and why since their decision to leave teaching. Prior to the interviews, participants were provided with an interview protocol. This gave them time to think about the questions. Interviews were tape-recorded and then transcribed. The content was analyzed to identify indicators of professional dissatisfaction/satisfaction, their causes, and how the informants responded. Interview transcripts were coded to identify common as well as unusual causes, effects, and circumstances surrounding teacher attrition.
Data Analysis
In order to summarize the responses of doctoral students who had entered and then chose to leave elementary and secondary schools, a three-stage systematic qualitative analysis was carried out. The first stage was a close reading of the raw interview material and an opening coding process. During the coding process, the authors extracted concepts from the source material and described these concepts in terms of attributes and dimensions. Next, axial coding of the qualitative data was performed to relate important concepts to each other, and then the coded data were categorized and refined. Finally, selective coding was employed to identify themes in the qualitative interview material.
Result
A theoretical study on the grounded of doctoral teachers found that limited space for career development and personal growth, the lack of academic research platforms and atmospheres, reduced salaries, and difficulty in assessing titles affected the career gains of doctoral students teaching in secondary schools. Factors such as tedious administrative work, long working hours, and assisting leaders in publishing papers affect the psychological expectations of doctoral students teaching in secondary schools.
Scholarly significance
This research fills the gap in the study of the specific phenomenon of doctoral graduates' employment choices and subsequent departures in the field of basic education. Previous studies may have focused more on the career development of doctoral students in universities or research institutions, while this study focuses on their experiences in primary and secondary schools, broadening the scope of academic research. Secondly, at the theoretical level, it helps deepen the understanding of the theories of career choice and career mobility. By deeply analyzing the reasons why doctoral graduates enter primary and secondary schools and then leave, it can further test and enrich the existing career development theories, providing new theoretical perspectives and analytical frameworks for subsequent studies. From a practical perspective, the research results have important guiding significance for the formulation of education policies and school management. Understanding the reasons why doctoral graduates choose to work in primary and secondary schools and then leave can help education departments and schools formulate more targeted recruitment, training and retention strategies, optimize the structure of the teaching staff, and improve the quality of education. In addition, for individual doctoral graduates, the research results help them have a clearer understanding of their career choices and make more rational decisions.

Authors

• Guo Dan

• Zhizhuo Wang, zhizhuo Wang