| The purpose of this study was to determine differences in teacher preparation and retention for two groups of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi graduates certified in 2002 and 2003. Factors that influenced teacher attrition, such as teaching assignments, working conditions, salary, benefits, scheduling, organizational skills, rapport with administrators, colleagues, parents and students were examined to determine whether graduates who completed a formal mentoring program stay in the teaching profession at higher rates than the graduates who did not participate in the Strategies of Success (SOS) formal mentoring program.; Participants included 95 certified TAMU-CC graduates who met the inclusion criterion of no prior teaching experience.; A causal-comparative research design was used to compare two pre-existing groups, non-SOS and SOS TAMU-CC certified graduates applying for certification in 2002 and 2003. Outcome measures examined were retention, reasons for leaving the field of education and satisfaction with the teacher education program at this regional university. The TAMU-CC Teacher Education Survey (Arnold & Ramirez, 2003) was used to collect data for this study. Results of the analyses showed no statistically significant difference between the non-SOS and SOS groups. |
