Addressing South Carolina's Secondary Level Teacher Attrition Problem: Examining Teachers' Self-Efficacy, Attitudes, and Assertions

<p>The present study contributes to the limited body of research pertaining to secondary teacher efficacy and its relationship to career persistence, gender, ethnicity, contract status, and years of teaching. In addition, this study examines the concepts of student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management as subscales used to define teacher efficacy. By seeking to better understand secondary teacher efficacy this research serves to facilitate proactive school reform in the area of teacher efficacy which is often related to premature teacher attrition.</p> <p>Approximately 120 secondary level teachers from a large rural South Carolina high school completed the Teacher Efficacy Long Form (TSES) during the fall of 2009. After data collection the researcher analyzed participant efficacy perceptions with respect to independent variables of gender, ethnicity, years of teaching experience and contract status through a causal comparative research design. Findings indicate a main effect for the variable of gender on the Student Engagement subscale. No other factors yielded main effects. Additionally, findings reveal an interaction effect between the years of experience and contract status independent variables on the Student Engagement subscale. A discussion of results include recommendations for improving teacher attrition through targeted interventions aimed at improving male teacher efficacy as it relates to student engagement. Other targeted suggestions focus on improving less experienced teachers' efficacy in terms of student engagement.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Campus Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Instruction and Teacher Education

Year

2010

Author dc:creator

• Guy, Trisha Hargett

Contributors dc:contributor

• Susan Schramm-Pate

• Curriculum and Instruction
• Education
• attitrition
• efficacy
• gender
• novice
• secondary
• teacher

Statement dc:rights

• © 2010, Trisha Hargett Guy

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/179

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarcommons.sc.edu:etd-1180