Predicting Teacher Turnover Intentions through Morale and Job Satisfaction: A Quantitative Study

In corporate America researchers have proposed that job satisfaction is associated with turnover intentions and others have implied that morale can affect turnover intentions. However, researchers in public education do not know is if there is a relationship between job satisfaction, morale, and turnover intentions among teachers in the public school system, as this is a unique organizational structure unto itself. Research shows that retention efforts benefit school districts, but they are time and cost intensive so administrators in public schools must justify the need and effectiveness of improvement strategy to their governing bodies with quantitative data. The problem addressed in this study was that teacher retention is a problem for American public schools which requires quantitative data to inform decisions to develop strategy and subsequently fund retention programs. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to measure the extent to which morale and job satisfaction could predict teacher turnover intention. The sample was public school teachers in a western state through the administration of an anonymous online survey composed of previously published analytics. Morale was measured using the Employee Morale Scale, job satisfaction was measured using the Teaching Satisfaction Scale, and turnover intention was measured using the Turnover Intention Scale. The data were analyzed using multiple regression. Morale was significantly correlated (r=-.543, p<.001) with and predicted (&...