Valuing and supporting teachers: a survey of teacher satisfaction, dissatisfaction, morale and retention with an English Local Education Authority

Abstract

his study focuses on schoolteacher job satisfaction, dissatisfaction, morale, and facets of professional experience likely to lead to retention or exit from the profession within five years. It was undertaken in an English local education authority which has experienced difficulty in recruiting and retaining teachers. Forty facets of professional experience likely to impinge upon job satisfaction or dissatisfaction were created in a focus group phase and are shown to be valid using a Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. A subsequent questionnaire survey of 368 teachers invited respondents to specify which of the facets they found most or least satisfying. A rank order of the relative importance of the facets, along with rank orders of factors likely to lead to teacher retention or exit from the profession within five years, was created. Chi-square tests of independence were used to identify differences in the five top-ranked factors likely to lead to retention or exit by gender, sector and years of service. The outcomes are used to suggest LEA and school leadership interventions designed to improve professional experience and increase both satisfaction and retention.