Teacher Retention and Attrition: Views of Early Career Teachers

TLDR

Teacher retention is a priority, yet attrition costs the profession and teachers, underscoring the need to examine early career teachers’ experiences that influence staying or leaving. The study investigates how school and system circumstances combined with early career teachers’ resilience resources can maximize retention, introducing the concept of “resilient stayers.” Researchers analyzed early career teachers’ experiences within a larger retention study, highlighting implications for supporting resilience and retention.

Abstract

The provision and maintenance of quality teachers is a matter of priority for the profession. Moreover, teacher attrition is costly to the profession, to the community and to those teachers who leave feeling disillusioned. There is a need to investigate the experiences of early career teachers to consider how these issues contribute to decisions about staying in or leaving the profession. This paper reports on an aspect of a larger study on teacher retention. It describes and analyses the experiences of teachers participating in the study and highlights implications for teacher retention. The study proposes the notion of ‘resilient stayers’, and how beginning teachers’ resilience might be strengthened and supported. It asks what combination of circumstances in the school and the system, and individual resources of resilience on the part of early career teachers, might maximise the chances of teachers choosing to remain in the profession.