Search results for: Attrition

The purpose of this study was to discover what novice teachers required to remain in the classroom. The authors identified four key elements that describe the process of teachers' attrition: entry, early experiences, pre-exit and exit. When the participants entered teaching, they were confident about what they would contribute. However, their early experiences reflected that their progress prevented. The participants were disappointed by leadership and/or veteran colleagues at pre-exit phase of leaving. The authors conclude that the participants enjoyed engaging with ideas and teaching practice during their preservice education. However, they reported that the schools they entered did not foster their growth as teachers or as individuals. They felt that this led to a sense of disillusionment, which led to their decision to leave school.

The author wondered why so many beginning teachers leave the profession. The author proposes to frame the problem as one of teacher identity making and identity shifting in order to understand the experiences of beginning teacher attrition.In what follows the author uses the stories of his experiences as a beginning teacher as a way to narratively read the ways beginning teacher attrition has been conceptualized. Through his experiences as a teacher, and his autobiographical narrative inquiry work, the author has begun to frame beginning teacher attrition as a problem that compels inquiry into teacher identity making and identity shifting as a way to narratively understand the experiences of beginning teachers.

The current study explores the motives for teacher attrition of newly qualified teachers who never started a teaching career and those dropping out after a short period. The analyses identified five reasons for exit attrition: ‘job satisfaction and relations with students’, ‘school management and support’, ‘workload’, ‘future prospect’ and ‘relations with parents’. The findings demonstrated that a lack of future prospects was the predominant reason for attrition. Furthermore, attrition differs according to gender, teaching degree and teachers' experience. Results reveal that exit attrition is highest for males and secondary school teachers.

This article presents statistics from a longitudinal study of attrition within the cohort of 87 Swedish teachers. The findings reveal that combining qualitative data with statistics in a longitudinal study on teachers’ career show that teacher attrition is a more complex and non-linear phenomenon than what is often proposed. The authors argue that the early leavers consist of a small and heterogenous group of individuals. Some of the reasons for attrition related to parental leave, Work overload, increased documentation and the notion of altered professional objectives.