THE RELATION OF MORALE TO TURNOVER AMONG TEACHERS.

Charters Jr., W. W.

As part of an earlier project, measures of intrinsic job satisfaction and identification with the school system were taken in samples of classroom teachers from 16 Missouri school systems in the St. Louis metropolitan area in the spring of 1961. The occupational status of the 538 teachers was determined in the third following academic year-in the fall of 1963. Statistically significant relationships were found between separations from the school systems and scores on the two morale measures. When the data were controlled for length of service in the system, length of teaching experience, and age, the magnitude of the differences generally declined and the number of subgroups in which differences were found decreased. However, the persistence of some significant relationships attested to the construct validity of the two morale measures. Further analyses of the data indicated that two variables, age and sex, were strongly related to patterns of teacher mobility. Males in the St. Louis area left classroom teaching rapidly and permanently for other occupations in and out of education. By the age of 50, few males remained in teaching. Females in their twenties and thirties left classroom teaching even more rapidly than males, and apparently left the labor market altogether, presumably to raise a family. Substantial numbers of them returned to teaching later on and proved to be virtually immobile until retirement. These mobility patterns were interpreted as reflecting different orientations to the occupational world among men and women teachers. Such orientations probably govern much of the variability in the mobility behavior of teachers and may, under certain conditions, render inoperative otherwise important variables, such as morale.

TEACHER attitudes; JOB satisfaction; EMPLOYEE attitudes; QUALITY of work life; MORALE; OCCUPATIONAL prestige

American Educational Research Journal, 1965, Vol 2, Issue 3, p163

0002-8312

Academic Journal

10.3102/00028312002003163