Secondary Science Teachers' Turnover - Term Paper Example

Institute Secondary Science Teachers’ Turnover Contents 2 Introduction 3 Theoretical framework 5 Literature Review 7 Teacher Turnover 7 Reasons for moving or Leaving Teaching 8 Method 10 Participants 10 Data collection and analysis 10 Validity 11 Findings 13 Finding of Movers and Leavers: 13 Rationales for Moving or Quitting the Study: 21 Discussion and Implications 26 Conclusion: 29 References 30 Abstract Teacher turnover is a major concern because of the demand it creates for replacement teachers. Consequently, the purposes of this research is to quantify the responses of 138 science teacher in science induction study to discover teachers’ turnover (attrition, mobility) in eight different schools. The author used qualitative as well as quantitative techniques to understand the trend and the reasons behind teachers leaving their job. It was found that science teachers leave their jobs mostly because they get better opportunities elsewhere. Besides, unsupportive administration is also one of the primary reasons teachers leave their job Introduction Teachers Turnover has become gradually more central in many debates regarding the teaching career in the United States. Teacher turnover is a big definition that includes teachers exiting the profession, changing fields, or changing their school. There are some teachers who are determined about their teaching profession. They have positive attitude towards teaching and are interested in making it a continuing vocation. On the other hand, some teachers enter the career with an intention for a few years of settlement with a potential plan to quit teaching for one or the other reason. A third group of teachers find themselves untrained for the reality of the classrooms which lead them to quit their teaching career. There are many reasons for teachers in general and more specifically for beginning teachers to quit teaching. Henry (1986) found that beginning teachers leave the teaching field due to the failure of coping with teaching complications. Reasons for teachers’ turnover may vary. They may quit or move because of: indiscipline amongst children, issues with the administration or parent, or lack of resources or inappropriate lab materials for science teachers. In this research we explore turnover by looking at 138 science teachers. The objective of this study is to provide information about teacher mobility and attrition among beginning secondary science school teachers who teach in middle and high schools in nine different states. In pursuit of this objective, this study examines the rationale of those teachers who stay in the teaching profession and those who leave. This study seeks to investigate the following questions: “What factors contribute to science teachers’ decisions to leave the profession or change their schools?” “What percentages of male and female science teachers leave the profession within first five years?” “How many teachers move from one school to another? What are the reasons that made them to change their profession within the first five years of their teaching occupation?” Theoretical framework To understand the idea of science teachers’ turnover broadly, it is necessary to look at theoretical perspectives of the teachers’ turnover and the rationale behind it. Boe, Bobbit and Cook (1993), define teacher turnover as the changes in teacher status from year to year. However, Teacher turnover consist of teachers leaving the profession, or change field or schools. Teacher turnover from schools is divided into two main sections. The first category is called teacher attrition. Teacher attrition is called to those who leave the career of teaching in general. The second category, identified as teacher migration. The migration of teachers refers to teachers who transfer or move to different teaching jobs in other schools (Ingersoll, 2000). The study by Billingsley CHANGE (1993) advocate three main aspects that control teachers’ turnover: personal aspects, external aspects, and employment aspects. The personal aspects consist of demographic, family, and emotional part of a teacher’s occupation choice. The external aspects contain social and economic factors. The employment aspects consist of qualification, experience, and work condition. Ingersoll (2001, 2002) anticipated in his research that the teacher hiring and quitting phase is a rotating cycle. Ingersoll (2001) analyzed national data and concluded that teacher occupation is revolving door in which almost half new teachers depart schools within five years. Lortie (2002) expresses new teachers’ in their first year of adjusting as “learning-while doing” or “a stay-leave process” (YEAR, 60). While, several researchers seek to frame studies around the reasons for beginning teacher’s turnover in general, other studies pointed out specific findings regard science teachers. Studies (Guarino, Santibañez, Daley, & Brewer, 2004 p. 34), show that teachers with higher degrees from colleges or teachers with degrees in “high market-value” subjects such as mathematics, engineering and science typically leave teaching for jobs in other, non-education fields at higher rates than do their colleagues without these educational qualities. Unlike Ingersoll, we compare only teachers in the specific professions who are beginning science teachers and avoid the methodological limitations of his analysis.  This methodology is further justified below and leads to somewhat different conclusions than in previous research. It is essential in this study to combine elements of mobility, attrition and science in order to understand turnover among 138 beginning secondary science teachers’ in the induction study. Literature Review Teacher Turnover In this research the focus is on secondary science teachers who left profession or moved from school to another during the five years of induction study. Most of the related research to this study is by Ingersoll (2001a, 2001b). He examined turnover between teachers using the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the Teacher Follow-Up Survey (TFS). In his study, he finds that amongst the 13.2 percent of teachers who are a part of teacher turnover, approximately half left the profession and half changed schools (YEAR). Ingersoll categorized the reasons of teachers’ turnover into three main domains: “teacher characteristics,” “school characteristics” and “organizational conditions” (YEAR). According to Ingersoll, school characteristics are reasons that are outside the control of policy if it is compared to the organizational conditions, which are determined by policy and administrator manners (YEAR). Ingersoll spotlights on the part of organizational conditions and notes that turnover is very high when salaries and organizational support are low (YEAR). Grissmer and Kirby (1997) in an earlier study, find that teacher turnover form a U-shaped curve stating that turnover take place in the beginning and end of the teaching occupation. Grissmer and Kirby (1997) compared teaching professions turnover to other fields and find that teachers’ turnover is natural. In regard of beginner teachers, indications are that schools with the largest number of beginning teachers have the fewest number of experienced teachers. Too often these experienced teachers are weighed down with so many responsibilities that they are reluctant or unable to take on the additional workload necessary to support and help out beginning teachers. Besides that Guin (2004) indicates that upon being hired by the school system, new teachers tend to be assigned to low social economic status schools. And if incoming teachers were restricted to such schools, it seems likely that many would eventually seek better opportunities outside the system (Guin, 2004). Reasons for moving or Leaving Teaching Reasons for turnover may overlap in many cases. Some teachers do retire, others leave for personal reasons such family or moving, and some number are dismissed from their jobs. But nearly half of all teachers who enter the field leave it within the first five years. Working conditions play a much larger role than retirement in explaining why teachers transfer to different schools and districts or leave the profession entirely. In an analysis of teacher turnover, teachers reported retirement as a reason for leaving less often than job dissatisfaction or the pursuit of another job (Ingersoll 2003). Employment aspects such as unsupportive administrators may lead to a teacher’s decision to leave the school (e.g., teacher transfer or quit) (CITE). More specific, Science teachers are eligible to find another career than teaching with better salaries and less effort (Huling-Austin, 1986). Among public school teachers who transferred from one school to another, moving to get a better teaching assignment was cited as a deciding factor 38.1 percent of the time. Similarly, dissatisfaction with workplace conditions (32.7 percent) and dissatisfaction with the support received from administrators at their previous school (37.2 percent) were equally cited as other important reasons in their decision to move (NCESa 2007). According to national attrition data from 1994-95 TFS for public school teachers, some of the main reasons for leaving were a variety of personal and family considerations (31%), poor health (5%), and school staffing actions (3%). Retirement accounted for 27%. Only 24% of public teachers wanted to escape from teaching and find out vocations other than teaching because they were dissatisfied with it (Whitener, Gruber, Lynch, Tingos, Perona, & Fondelier, 1997). The teachers leaving the profession that participated in the NCES study listed their main sources of dissatisfaction as lack of planning time, too heavy a workload, and class size. That points to a greater need for improved working environments, including everything from good leadership to community support. . Method Participants The data collection and analysis used in the study was based on five years of data collection on beginning secondary science teachers. This study is based on the data collected from 138 teachers who participated in different induction programs. The process of the data collection was the following: a total of 138 teachers completed interviews and written assessments about their understanding of science teaching and they were observed twice during each year of the study. In addition teachers were interviewed about their classroom practices during eight weeks spread across the school year. Data collection and analysis Marshall and Rossman (1995) said that a descriptive analysis is a proper research methodology when the researcher seeks to document a phenomenon of significance. Thus, the collection of qualitative data in regard to teachers’ turnover was coded according to categories that serve in answering the research (e.g., studying, moving, unsupportive administration). Data were placed in a spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel. During coding the data are broken down into separated sections, closely examined, and compared for similarities and differences, and questions are asked about the phenomena as reflected in the data. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis has provided some understanding of the reasons for quitting and some description of the destinations of those leaving. These data were analyzed in relationship to the research questions with SPSS and Excel using descriptive, non-parametric techniques. In the process of the data collection, researchers focused on the written and digital forms of the pre and post interviews for teachers and weekly updates. The information gathered from interviews at the beginning of the each year of the study had useful information in terms of new school or districts. Interviews with the teachers at the end of the year focused on plans for their next year. The quantitative data were analyzed by both: SPSS and Microsoft Excel software. As responses were examined, they were coded, placed in tables, and analyzed for emergent themes (Creswell, 2008). The emergent themes were further analyzed using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to graphically analyze data for patterns in change over time. Lastly, because we want to find out the turnover between science female and male teachers we ran a Cross tabulation which can be used to analyze an interdependent relationship between two tables of values but does not identify a causal relationship between the values. Validity For the validity of the research we were focusing on taking more detailed coding memos, these were eventually accumulated into a narrative description explicating to the theoretical explanation of data use and its implications. Next, in case of the data indicating conflicting responses, a discussion of these results is indicated for further analysis. The scale to evaluate teacher efficacy and outcome expectancy has been authorized for content validity and reliability by the researchers. The interviews have been validated through team-review process involving several stages of redesign, and have been modified to mirror parts of the questions in order to be able to interrupt qualified results. In addition to that, we had used multiple sources of data. When data from several different sources, such as documents, and interviews converge on the same point for coding, there can be greater confidence in the validity of these conclusions than if only one data source informs conclusions. Findings By using SPSS software to analyze the coded data of 138 teachers, table1, showed that there were 53 (38.4%) males and 85 (61.6%) females in the whole study. Table 1.Percent of males and females in the study Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid males 53 38.4 38.4 38.4 females 85 61.6 61.6 100.0 Total 138 100.0 100.0 Finding of Movers and Leavers: “What percentages of male and female science teachers leave the profession among the five years?” The first part of the analysis will focus mainly on the number of teachers who left the study among five years. Table 3 shows the percentage of both groups of teachers who left the study or moved from their first schools after one year from the induction study. 16.1% of the teachers moved from their first school to another different school while 13.1% from the teachers quit the study, further details will be discussed in the second part of the analysis. More specific, table 4 represents the percentages of males and females teachers who moved or quit the study. Ten males moved from their first schools while 12 females moved from their first school. Nine males and nine females quit the study after their first year of teaching science for several reasons. Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of teacher who quit the study in general N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation Pre_Year_1 138 1.00 1.00 1.0000 .00000 Post_Year_1 137 1.00 5.00 1.6861 1.34357 Post_Year_2 119 1.00 5.00 1.6891 1.37624 Post_Year_3 102 1.00 5.00 1.9706 1.60109 Post_Year_5 71 1.00 5.00 1.1549 .57689 Valid N (listwise) 71 Table 3. Post_Year_1 Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid same school 97 70.3 70.8 70.8 first move 22 15.9 16.1 86.9 quit or not in the study 18 13.0 13.1 100.0 Total 137 99.3 100.0 Missing System 1 .7 Total 138 100.0 Table 4 After the second year of the study, 10% of the teachers moved from their first school that they have started with in the beginning of their occupation as shown in table 5. However, there were 2.2% of teachers who moved from their second schools. The leavers who left the professions were 13.4%. Table 6 shows a better view for the gender differences in teachers’ turnover. Among the 12 teachers who moved from their first school four were males and eight were females but only one male teacher moved from his second school and two females moved from their second ones. The teachers who quit the study were 16 teachers in total, nine of them were males and seven of them were females. Table 5 Post_Year_2 Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid same school 88 63.8 73.9 73.9 first move 12 8.7 10.1 84.0 second move 3 2.2 2.5 86.6 quit or not in the study 16 11.6 13.4 100.0 Total 119 86.2 100.0 Missing System 19 13.8 Total 138 100.0 Table 6 After the third year of induction study, only 5.9% of the teachers moved from their first school, 4.9% moved from their second school and 1% moved from the third school. Teachers who quit the study were 19.6% as shown in table7. Table 8 explicates the data in term of gender, among the 6 teachers, an even number of three males and females moved from their first school. a total of five teachers ( 3 males and 2 females) moved to second school, and only one female teacher moved to a third school. Table 8 also shows that four male teachers quit the study and 16 female teachers quit the study. Table 7 Post_Year_3 Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid same school 70 50.7 68.6 68.6 first school 6 4.3 5.9 74.5 second school 5 3.6 4.9 79.4 third school 1 .7 1.0 80.4 quit or not in the study 20 14.5 19.6 100.0 Total 102 73.9 100.0 Missing System 36 26.1 Total 138 100.0 Table 8 As stated earlier the induction study was funded by the NSF for another year. The graduate students contacted the teachers to participate in extension year. Among the teachers who responded back 7% moved from their first school, 1.4% moved to the second school and 1.4% quit the study after their fourth year of teaching. Table 10 shows that only one male moved from his first school while four females moved from their first school. One female teacher moved from first school, one from second school, and one female quit the study. Table 9 Post_Year_5 Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid same school 64 46.4 90.1 90.1 first school 5 3.6 7.0 97.2 second school 1 .7 1.4 98.6 quit or not in the study 1 .7 1.4 100.0 Total 71 51.4 100.0 Missing System 67 48.6 Total 138 100.0 Table 10 Rationales for Moving or Quitting the Study: For better understanding and in term of answering the second part of the research questions. “What factors contribute to science teachers’ decisions to leave the profession or change their schools?” and “How many teachers move or quit from one school to another and what are the reasons behind their moving/quitting among five years of their teaching occupation?” , we analyzed the data through frequency tables to figure out the reasons behind teachers’ moving and quitting their professions. There were related reasons for both moving and quitting. Thus, we had to establish two different tables 11 and 12 to represent the reasons for moving and quitting. Table 11 shows ten varied reasons for teachers to move from their schools across the five years. Table 11 displays that mobility of the science teachers was higher in the first and in the second year of the study, while it became more sustained in the further years of the study. The heights cause for teachers to leave schools was “unsupportive administration”. There were 11 cases among the five years. Coded reason After the first year After the second year After the third year After the fourth year Total Job in another school 5 1 0 1 7 Unsupportive Administration 3 6 0 2 11 teaching system 3 0 1 1 5 demography of school 3 1 1 1 6 Fired 0 1 0 0 1 Switch school 0 1 0 0 1 interested in High school 1 1 0 0 2 interested middle school 0 1 0 0 1 budget cut 0 1 1 0 2 Moving 2 0 3 0 5 Total 17 13 6 5 41 Table 11: Science Teachers mobility The second part of this analysis is focusing on the rationales behind teachers’ attrition. Table 12 shows seven different reasons for teachers to leave their career as science teachers. There was one group of teachers who continued teaching science but did not want to participate in the study. After the first year of teaching the rate of attrition was the heights and it decreased gradually. The most cause for science teacher attrition was the ability to find another job other than teaching. Table 12 Reasons for quitting After year 1 After year 2 After year 3 After year 4 Total Family 0 3 1 1 5 Fired 6 2 0 0 8 Another career 5 3 3 0 11 Studying 2 2 3 0 7 teaching another subject 2 3 2 0 7 Budget cut 1 1 0 0 2 Moving 4 2 0 0 6 Teaching science but not participate 0 0 9 0 9 Total 20 16 18* 1 55 *There were nine science teachers who did not participate in the study but retrained in their position as science teachers Discussion and Implications The findings emphasized what has been stated earlier about teacher turnover. Teachers were moving from school mostly because of unsupportive administration. Teachers’ decisions whether to stay or leave the school was highly dependent on the supportiveness of the administration. Thus, it is important for administrators and experienced teachers to understand about observation and peer-coaching strategies (Colbert & Wolff, 1992). This makes it compulsory that both universities and school districts work collaboratively toward implementing successful strategies to maintain teachers’ turnover (CITE). This problem can be addressed by insuring that beginning teachers attend university classes and in-service workshops regularly and are encouraged to work together (CITE Figure3 We did not compare our teachers to other fields rather than describing what happened to teachers who did not continue with us in the study. The other research discussed earlier in the literature review we were only looking for the frequent reasons for both mobility and attrition. Conclusion: Although the number of our participants remained almost constant during the study, there were a number of teachers either left teaching profession or transferred from one place to another. The study was interested in analyzing the group of teachers who turnover during the study and investigate the reasons behind it. In this study we noted that science teachers’ turnover was mainly during the first two years and it decreased as the study went further. The primary reasons behind the movement were: unsupportive administration and better paying job opportunities. Further research can be conducted in the area. Factor analysis can be done to find out the affect that the various factors are having on the propensity of science teachers to quit the job. Moreover, a study can be made from the point of administrators and studying the strategies adopted by management to retain teachers and their effect on teacher turnover. References http://repository.upenn.edu/gse pubs/96 Ingersoll, R. M. (1997). Teacher turnover and teacher quality: The recurring myth of teacher shortages. Teachers College Record, 91(1), 41-44. Ingersoll, R. M. (2001). Teacher turnover and teacher shortages: An organizational analysis. American Educational Research Journal, 38(3), 499-534. Grissmer, D., & Kirby, S. (1997). Teacher turnover and teacher quality. Teacher’s College Record 99(1), 45-56. Read More