Teacher Recruitment and Retention: A Critical Review of International Evidence of Most Promising Interventions

Abstract

Background: A raft of initiatives and reforms have been introduced in many countries to attract and recruit school teachers, many of which do not have a clear evidence base, so their effectiveness remains unclear. Prior research has been largely correlational in design. This paper describes a rigorous and comprehensive review of international evidence, synthesising the findings of some of the strongest empirical work so far. Methods: The review synthesises a total of 120 pieces of research from 13 electronic databases, Google/Google scholar and other sources. Each study is weighted by strength of evidence. Results: The strongest evidence suggests that targeted money can encourage people into teaching but does not necessarily keep them in the teaching profession. The money needs to be large enough to compensate for the disadvantages of working in certain schools and areas, and competitive enough to offset the opportunity costs of not being in more lucrative occupations, and its effect is only short-term. Conclusions: Continuing professional development (CPD) and early career support could be promising approaches for retaining teachers in the profession, but the evidence for them is weak. There is no evidence that any other approaches work, largely because of the lack of robust studies.

The Demographic Transformation of the Teaching Force in the United States

“…Elementary and secondary teaching in the U.S. has long been marked by relatively high rates of annual departures of teachers from schools and from teaching altogether [38,44,86], and especially in the past three decades, there has been a burgeoning of empirical research on a wide variety of aspects of teacher turnover, mobility, and attrition [10,[87][88][89][90][91]. Here we will draw from our own extensive research findings on teacher turnover-especially focusing on trends for beginning teachers.…”

The Influences of Organizational Structure in the Hidden Curriculum: Implications in School Practice

“…Many public and private schools pictured their teachers and related academic staff as tired (See et al, 2020). Viewed as a vital entity of the school, these teachers have been delegated with overloaded teaching units exceeding those of what they can endure (Martinez & McAbee, 2020).…”

“…Moreover, the distribution of these units across a certain timetable can affect teachers' health and daily capacity as some of them are overworked for long periods of hours without proper meals and rest. Retention and recruitment and the working environment may also affect the staffing of school teachers (See et al, 2020;Martinez & McAbee, 2020). The teachers often experience hardships which in turn affect the quality of learning inside the classroom.…”

“…This seemingly important picture of the delegated part of the hierarchy reflects on poor working conditions and in turn, affects the overall learning environment. Pieces of research highlight the need for teacher support and care (See et al, 2020;Martinez & McAbee, 2020) which, among schools, are often an undervalued topic. Teachers design and plan the school curriculum, realize the school's pedagogical aspirations, and mold students, hence, they are a very important body for the continuity of learning and school activities.…”

Delivering Music Education Training for Non-Specialist Teachers through Effective Partnership: A Kodály-Inspired Intervention to Improve Young Children’s Development Outcomes

“…Recent studies suggest that effective mentoring and induction may improve teachers' job satisfaction and thus retention ( [24] See et al (2020); [25] Allen & Sims, 2017; [26] DeAngleis, Wall & Che, 2013; [27] Glazerman & Seifullah, 2013; [28] Gold, 1987; [29] Ronfeldt & McQueen, 2017), and this could be particularly important in a subject area where there may be less confidence. [16] Barrett, Zhukov & Welch's (2019) study of Australian teachers suggests that a collaborative approach to workplace mentoring for generalist teachers can help strengthen music provision in early childhood education.…”