Cross-National Analysis on Teacher Qualification Distribution and Factors Relating to Teacher Turnover Intention: Three Studies

Most of the teacher distribution and turnover studies have built on within-country analysis. The results from those studies, however, are often inconsistent. The purpose of my dissertation research is to investigate the distributions of teacher qualifications and to determine the factors contributing to the intention of teachers to leave their current workplace or profession by using the cross-national survey data TALIS 2013 and other databases administrated by international organizations. The research is comprised of three separate studies and is developed in a journal article format. The first study examined how different measures of teacher qualifications were distributed across low-and high-SES classrooms and schools and the relationships between the national contexts and teacher distributions. The findings indicate that the magnitude of the exposure rates and gaps to less-qualified teachers between low-and high-SES classrooms and schools vary significantly across countries and governments play a critical role in narrowing the gaps of teacher distribution. The second study provides in-depth analyses of how country contexts along with teacher and school variables might relate to teachers’ turnover intentions by using a set of three-level HLM models. The findings reveal that the variation in teacher turnover intention across countries is a function of teacher-, school-, and country-level factors. Teacher salary and working condition are not the only important factors in teacher retention; the ability of countries to successfully recruit and retain quality teachers might also rely on the status of teaching profession. Furthermore, the country contexts have moderated the nature or strength of the relationships between working conditions and teacher turnover intention. he third study is an attempt to understand the non-pecuniary factors contributing to the variations of teacher turnover intention across the U.S. lower secondary schools (grades 7-9). The results of HLM models indicate that the school attributes, especially the organizational conditions, have notably contributed to teachers’ intention to change school. In addition, the study has revealed the moderation effect of disadvantaged schools on the relationships between the teacher characteristics and their intention to change school. The implications for teacher retention policies have been discussed as well