Should I stay or should I go? Resilience as a protective factor for teachers’ intention to leave the teaching profession

Abstract

Teacher attrition is a current issue in Australia and other economically developed countries, with up to 50 per cent of teachers resigning from teaching within the first five years. Teacher attrition is widely considered to impact negatively on student achievement and the school. The present study of 160 Australian primary and secondary teachers who have been in the profession for up to 10 years investigates whether teachers’ generalised resilience is associated with their intention to leave the teaching profession. As hypothesised, results indicate that lower levels of resilience are significantly related to a higher intention to leave the teaching profession, after controlling for job satisfaction and demographic variables. Implications for teaching conditions related to job satisfaction and the resilience of early career teachers are discussed.