Why Teachers Keep Going

By Dr. Kay Shurtleff, Region 10 ESC Research & Evaluation Analyst

LACK OF RESPECT, high stress, long hours, low pay, high stakes tests. These are all reasons teachers give for leaving the classroom and sometimes even the profession. With so many districts beginning the current school year with unfilled positions, the teacher shortage is an issue that demands attention. Rather than approaching the problem from a deficit mindset and continuing to ask questions about why teachers have left, Region 10 ESC decided to take a proactive approach and find out what motivates teachers to keep doing their jobs.

We know that a motivated, high-caliber teacher is the best way to ensure positive student outcomes and that high teacher turnover has a negative impact on student achievement.

According to the Texas Education Agency (tea.texas.gov), 11.57% of Texas teachers left the education profession following the 2001-21 academic year. That means 88.43% of them stayed in teaching. What can we learn from that 88% about what keeps them going back to school every day?

What does the research say?

We dug into previous studies to see what researchers have learned thus far. In a very tiny nutshell, here are the biggest reasons teachers stay:

1. A sense of purpose

2. High self-efficacy

3. Connection with colleagues, campus, and community

4. Supportive administrators

It is, of course, more complicated than a list of four reasons. Teacher motivation is complex and does not fit neatly into categories (Chiong, Menzies, & Parameshwaran, 2017). Further, there are also other reasons which surfaced less frequently in the literature, some of which are related to the four reasons listed above.

Sense of Purpose

The single biggest reason long-term teachers gave for staying in the profession was that they were able to see and believe in the potential outcomes of their work on the current and future lives of their students (Landrum, Guilbeau, & Garza, 2017; Webb, 2018). On an even larger scale, they were able to view their work as having a positive impact on society as a whole (Aria, Jafari, & Behifar, 2019; Aytac, 2021; Parr, et al., 2021; Whipp & Salin, 2018). Two different studies (Chiong, et al., 2017; Voltz, et al., 2021), focused on teachers who had taught 10 years or longer and found that they were able to focus on their own sense of purpose regardless of the external factors affecting their jobs or their campuses. In short, these teachers were able to remember their “why” throughout the day-to-day highs and lows of their jobs.

Self-Efficacy

A second characteristic of persevering teachers was that they had confidence in their ability to teach and believed they were intellectually equipped to handle the challenge (Aria, et al., 2019; Aytac, 2021; Chiong, et al., 2017; Ismail & Miller, 2020; Landrum, et al., 2017; Parr, et al., 2021; Whipp & Salin, 2018). This trait, often called self-efficacy or teacher efficacy, was seen in the literature almost as often as a sense of purpose and has been studied for decades (see Henson, Kogan, & Vacha-Haase, 2001). One study (Voltz, et al., 2021) linked teacher self-efficacy with a high quality teacher preparation program. Interestingly, one other study (Parr, et al., 2021) found that teachers who reported having negative experiences with school as children were motivated by those experiences to stay in the teaching profession longer!

Connection with Colleagues, Campus, and Community

Just like students, teachers felt a need to belong on a campus (Aria, et al., 2019; Sudibjo & Suwarli, 2020). This sense of connection as a motivating factor was found in both rural (Whaland, 2020; Zost, 2019) and urban settings (Rinehart, 2021). Teachers who felt supported by their coworkers were more likely to stay in their jobs and, in some cases, also more likely to believe that others had a respect for the teaching profession (Whipp & Salin, 2018).

Supportive Administrators

After a sense of purpose, self efficacy, and a connection to others, teachers specified support from their campus administrators as a reason they continued teaching (Aria, et al., 2019; Lowery, 2021; Rinehart, 2021; Viano, et al., 2021; Whaland, 2020). It should be noted that three of the studies (Lowery, 2021; Rhinehart, 2021; Whaland, 2020) were recent unpublished doctoral dissertations which may be a positive sign of forthcoming research in this area. Regardless, teachers expressed that when administrators respected and listened to them, they were happier in their jobs and more likely to stay. Also notable was one small study of math teachers (Webb, 2018) which found no relationship between administrative support and teacher longevity. Teachers in that study identified their desire to help students as the main reason they stayed.

The four reasons delineated above are likely interrelated. Further, other reasons surfaced in research that might be considered tangentially (if not directly) related. For example, teachers in one study (Whipp & Salin, 2018) talked about autonomy as a reason to stay in their jobs. Autonomy is likely the result of strong administrative support as well as self efficacy. Another study (Viano, et al., 2021) revealed school safety, student discipline, small class sizes, and access to high quality professional learning as reasons teachers stayed. We can speculate that those conditions were brought about by a supportive administration.

For a full list of references, visit bit.ly/R10ref