Date

3-2018

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Chair

Michelle J Barthlow

Keywords

Elementary Schools, High-Poverty Schools, Job Satisfaction, Retention, Title I, Turnover

Disciplines

Education | Educational Administration and Supervision | Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Educational Psychology | Other Educational Administration and Supervision

Abstract

The public school systems in the United States are facing a major teacher shortage in the near future due to the fact that teachers are leaving the profession by the thousands each year. It is imperative that this trend is stopped and reversed to ensure that quality teachers remain in schools. The current study employed a causal-comparative design to determine if working conditions in Title I schools versus non-Title I schools were associated with teacher job satisfaction and teacher retention using the North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions (NC TWC) Survey. The qualifications of the selected participants were that they were employed in a specific district in North-Central North Carolina during the 2015-2016 school year, and taught in two specific Title I or two specific non-Title I elementary schools. Participants were drawn from a convenience sample of teachers (n= 110) in two Title I elementary schools and two non-Title I elementary schools and were randomly selected from that sample for job satisfaction, and fifty Title I elementary schools and fifty non-Title I elementary schools (n=100) for teacher turnover rate. The data were analyzed using a t-test for independent means to determine whether the means of the two groups were statistically significant from one another in job satisfaction and a chi-square test to determine whether teacher turnover rate was distributed differently between the Title I schools and non-Title I schools. No significant difference was found in any subcategory for job satisfaction and no significant difference was found in teacher retention. Recommendations for future research include utilizing a larger number of schools and districts in the sample and examining all subcategories of the NC TWC Survey. The results of this study may influence the steps that school systems can take to retain quality teachers.

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