Teacher Retention, Teacher Attrition, and Teacher Personalities

The teaching profession is currently suffering from the number of teachers who leave the classroom before retirement. Many corporations use personality testing to determine if an individual is suitable for a position and if they are likely to remain in that position for the duration of their career. A causal-comparative research design was used to determine if there was a difference in teachers who left the classroom before retirement, teachers who officially retired under normal circumstances, biological sex, and personality type. The Big Five Inventory-2 was used to determine the personality types of the participants. The participants were categorized into one of the following personality domains: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, or Openness to experience. There were three significant findings from the data collected. A chi-squared test of goodness of fit found those who left the classroom before retirement were less agreeable than those who retired as classroom teachers. It was also found that women who left the classroom before retirement were more conscientiousness than men who left. Men were found to be more often identified as openness personality types than women who left the classroom. The results indicate that personality type may be an indicator for teachers’ retention and attrition