Components of educator motives in relation to teacher turnover rates

Abstract

Teacher turnover is not a new phenomenon. The possibility of educators leaving the profession in recent and future months due to a myriad of preexisting issues brought to a head with the global COVID pandemic, however, may be cause for greater concern. Will teachers, both veteran and new to the profession, leave in greater volume over the next few years without sufficient numbers of pre-service or alternatively certified teachers available to take their positions? This study aims to address possible reasons and job stressors for leaving including taxed emotional intelligence, the emotional labor involved in teaching, or a combination of these through self-reported measures creating a quantitative study using the job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Yin, 2015; Yin, Huang & Lv, 2018). A survey was created and posted on several social media outlets and sent through messages. A total of 301 responses were recorded, however, only 209 were used for this study as responses with only demographic information were omitted. Results confirm that emotional intelligence plays a significant role in educators’ decisions to leave the profession. This research hopes to shed light on possible areas where interventions for educators and pre-service education students can be easily integrated to mitigate stressors causing higher turnover rates while sharing these results with administrators, Board of Education members, policymakers, and other stakeholders.