Exploring the Role of Workplace Conditions Measurement in Teacher Turnover Research

• In Event: 34.052 - Teacher Mobility and Retention

Abstract

Teacher turnover is a social phenomenon that carries high financial and academic costs for schools and school districts. This paper examines ways in which studies of teacher turnover and workplace conditions vary in their analytic approaches (e.g. constructs, measures, level of analysis, modeling strategy) and how this variation may complicate the comparison of findings across studies. A literature review focused on measurement variation is followed by an empirical exploration of differences in inferential results that occur when workplace conditions are conceptualized as being experienced by individual teachers as compared to when they are conceptualized as an aggregate of the perceptions of all the teachers in a school.

Authors

• Ean Fonseca, Johns Hopkins University

• Ashley Anne Grant, Johns Hopkins University

• Marc L. Stein, Johns Hopkins University