Collaborative Research: Examining the Role of Compensation and Other Factors for Retention of Teachers in High-need Schools

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This project aims to serve the national need of retaining effective STEM teachers in high-need schools. The research team seeks to understand what induces STEM teachers to continue to serve in high-need schools, particularly how compensation affects their decision to stay. School districts often use compensation packages (including salary and benefits like health insurance, retirement plans, and leave days) to attract teachers into different jobs. However, when teachers make decisions about whether to stay in a job, they take other considerations into account, including working conditions. Using statewide Alaska employment information, this project will mathematically determine what compensation measures, working conditions, and other factors most strongly influence teacher decisions to stay or go. The project will then do case studies to highlight examples of high-need schools that have improved compensation and working conditions to retain STEM teachers longer than predicted. This information may help to inform policy at the state and school district levels by helping school leaders and lawmakers design compensation systems that are more effective in promoting teacher retention.This project at the University of Alaska Anchorage and the University of Alaska Fairbanks applies Bandura’s theory of reciprocal determinism to a mixed-methods research design exploring two overarching research questions: (1) How does compensation encourage STEM teachers to stay in high-need schools, and (2) What other factors influence STEM teacher retention? The project will use statistical models of teacher job changes to describe the extent to which measurable characteristics of teachers, school assignments, students, districts, and communities affect retention, and how trade-offs between salary and working conditions influence teacher choices. Individual and comparative qualitative case studies of high-need schools with better-than-predicted STEM teacher retention will identify key determinants of teacher decisions to stay in high-retention schools. The research directly addresses known gaps in the literature around (1) the relative contribution of working conditions and compensation as factors in STEM teacher retention, (2) the degree to which options for STEM educators to move between classroom teaching and non-teaching jobs, including in the private sector, affect retention, and (3) how high-need schools that retain STEM educators are able to do so. The wide variation in Alaska’s compensation systems and community characteristics will facilitate broadly generalizable analyses, which will have potential to provide practical recommendations to schools and districts, as well as to influence policy in structuring teacher compensation. This Track 4: Noyce Research project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the persistence, retention, and effectiveness of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.