A0344
Title: Determinants of early career teachers retention intention: Evidence from a multilevel model
Authors: Mike Smet - KU Leuven (Belgium) [presenting]
Abstract: Numerous studies in different countries find increasing teacher turnover rates, leading to shortages and negatively impacting the quality of education. Especially the attrition rates of early career teachers are high and are a major cause for concern. The method examines early career teacher retention intention using data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018, which OECD conducted. The empirical analysis includes 6,500 early career teachers nested in more than 2,300 schools, further nested in 20 regions. A multilevel or hierarchical linear model (HLM) is estimated to investigate the relationship between various individual and school-specific factors and the intention to stay among teachers. Results show that several individual-level and school-level predictors (e.g. age, diploma, intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to become a teacher, type of contract, job satisfaction, satisfaction with salary, perception of workload, school composition, school climate, school size, school location, etc.) are significant predictors of early career teacher retention intention. The findings have important policy implications for reducing teacher attrition rates. Several significant predictors can be influenced by policy decisions, both at the school level or at a more aggregate level.
