Volume 3 - Issue 1 - DBU Journal for K-12 Educational Research - Page 67

Journal of K-12 Educational Research 65 participants to capture qualitative details about their retention responses. Finally, the study analyzed job satisfaction perception differences between stayers and leavers. Summary When retained teacher responses were examined exclusively, most of the demographic subgroups did not show significant differences between the domain means, but there were isolated differences among some demographic subgroups. A significant difference in job satisfaction was found between middle and high school teachers within the domains of preservice preparation and professional development. A significant difference in job satisfaction was found between male and female teachers within the school culture domain. A significant difference in job satisfaction was found between degrees held within the emotional factors domain. When comparing all science teachers’ retention plans responses, an NVivo qualitative analysis discovered many emerging themes. Through a qualitative analysis, motivation to teach was the most mentioned domain for teachers planning to stay in teaching. On the other hand, school culture was the most commonly cited reason for leavers. During the qualitative analysis, two themes, new employment and schedule, emerged as additional reasons outside of the seven job satisfaction domains. Figure 1 displays a brief review of the most significant findings discovered by the qualitative analysis. The inferential statistics indicated there were significant differences between stayers and leavers across all domains except preservice preparation. Stayers rated the various job satisfactions domains significantly more positively than leavers. With regards to all teachers, the most positively rated domain by stayers was Motivation to Teach ( M = 3.25). The most negatively rated domain by stayers was Compensation ( M = 1.97). Similarly, compensation was also the lowest job satisfaction factor rated by stayers ( M = 2.13). The largest gaps in job satisfaction among stayers and leavers were present in the Motivation to Teach and Emotional Factors. New Themes There were some themes that emerged during the qualitative analysis that did not fall under the seven job satisfaction domains. Other employment was mentioned by 8% of all teachers. The other employment theme had two clear subthemes. The sub- theme of new employment within education was cited by 5% of all teachers and included the intentions to be a counselor, principal, or in a position other than teaching. The subtheme new employment outside of education was cited by 3% of all teachers. Eight percent of leavers cited job outside of education as a reason to leave the classroom. An additional theme that emerged through the qualitative analysis was a calendar or schedule theme. Nine percent of teachers positively cited schedule or calendar as a reason for continuing to teach. Implications While there were no differences within demographic characteristic subgroups on compensation perception, the study found that the perceptions of leavers on compensation were significantly lower when compared to stayers. Additionally, qualitative data supported this finding with almost half of the leavers citing compensation negatively as a reason for leaving education. Furthermore, almost 20% of teachers planning to stay in teaching still mentioned compensation negatively in their retention responses. Similar to other studies, this data hinted at the fact that several teachers who were retained were still not happy with their compensation (Armer, 2011; Lastica, 2012; Lembo, 2016). The current study discovered that leavers overall were significantly less satisfied with their preservice preparation. More specifically, high school teachers were more satisfied with their preservice preparation than their middle school counterparts. This was an interesting discovery and no previous research could validate why this finding occurred. The qualitative analysis provided no comments from the leavers about preservice preparation, so there was no additional evidence to provide depth to this finding. The overall finding from all leavers supported other studies that found teacher efficacy could be directly linked to the preservice preparation, and when teachers no longer feel they can be successful, they leave (Tran, Young, Mathison, & Hahn, 2000; Vagi, Pivovarova, & Miedel Barnard, 2017).