Public Education in Crisis: Predicting Teachers' Intention to Leave Through Exploration of Intra-Personal Characteristics and Macro-Economic Factors

Over the past several decades, education research reveals the struggle to retain teachers, particularly after the adoption of Common Core State Standards in 2010. During and post-COVID-19 consequences magnified and accelerated teachers leaving the profession. Little research has explored the link between teacher wellbeing and retention. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine: 1) the literature base regarding teacher wellbeing, self-efficacy, and resilience in K-5^th public educators, 2) test predictors of wellbeing and their relation to intentions to leave with K-12^th public educators, and 3) explore the influence of larger contextual factors (i.e., housing cost and commute distance) on wellbeing and retention.

In the scoping review of the literature, results revealed a lack of studies in the United States connecting teacher wellbeing, self-efficacy, and resilience for elementary public school educators. Most studies examined those constructs by only pairs, within specific contexts (i.e., program outcomes), in relation to stress, or assumed due to the lack of stress present. Therefore, a cross-sectional, survey was distributed to teachers across the United States (N = 1,037) to explore self-efficacy, resilience, job satisfaction, and sense of safety in relation to wellbeing and intention to leave among public school, general education, K-12^th grade teachers. Additionally, macro-economic factors were assessed in the form of percentage of monthly housing cost and distance traveled between home and school.

Results indicate the importance of teacher wellbeing on teachers’ intention to leave. Resilience, job satisfaction, and sense of physical safety significantly predicted teacher wellbeing while teacher wellbeing also mediated those predictors with turnover intention. Further, teacher wellbeing fully mediated the impact of housing cost and commute distance on teacher turnover intention. The variety of constructs and connections drawn between them center around teacher wellbeing as a central focus to retain educators and provides multiple avenues of intervention to increase wellbeing and thus, decrease intentions to leave.