Hong2012 Social Strategy and Leave Early

This article was downloaded by: [Eindhoven Technical University]
On: 18 November 2014, At: 00:47

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Teachers and Teaching: theory and

practice
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ctat20
Why do some beginning teachers

leave the school, and others stay?
Understanding teacher resilience
through psychological lenses
a
Ji Y. Hong
a
Department of Educational Psychology , University of
Oklahoma , Norman , OK , USA
Published online: 14 Jun 2012.
To cite this article: Ji Y. Hong (2012) Why do some beginning teachers leave the school, and others
stay? Understanding teacher resilience through psychological lenses, Teachers and Teaching: theory
and practice, 18:4, 417-440, DOI: 10.1080/13540602.2012.696044
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2012.696044
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising
out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-
and-conditions
Downloaded by [Eindhoven Technical University] at 00:47 18 November 2014
Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice
Vol. 18, No. 4, August 2012, 417–440
Why do some beginning teachers leave the school, and others

stay? Understanding teacher resilience through psychological
lenses
Ji Y. Hong*
Department of Educational Psychology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

(Received 18 October 2009; final version received 28 April 2011)
With the increasing concern about the high attrition rate among beginning teach-
ers, it is essential that we come to a better understanding of why teachers leave
the profession. This study explored differences between leavers and stayers in
terms of the process of their resilience responses. Major psychological factors
such as value, self-efficacy, beliefs and emotions were foregrounded to under-
stand how leavers and stayers are similar or different in negotiating and inter-
preting external environments. This study employed semi-structured interviews
for seven leavers and seven stayers who had teaching experiences of less than
five years. The findings of this study showed that both leavers and stayers had
intrinsic interests in working as a teacher. Also, both groups identified similar
challenges of working as a teacher, such as classroom management and effective
delivery of lessons. However, leavers showed weaker self-efficacy beliefs than
stayers, who tended to get more support and help from school administrators. In
addition, leavers held beliefs that imposed heavy burdens on themselves, which
may have created stress and emotional burnout. Unlike leavers, stayers often
reported their strategies to prevent them from being burned out by setting
boundaries establishing relationship with students. Given the high attrition rate
of beginning teachers, the current study provides meaningful insight about chal-
lenges beginning teachers’ face, their needs and better ways to prepare and train
them.
Keywords: teacher attrition; resilience; professional identity; emotions; self-
efficacy; beliefs and value
Introduction
The shortage of teachers is an issue of grave concern in education. Researchers
across many countries have tried to identify the factors contributing to the teacher
shortage, such as an increasing number of retirees (e.g. Carroll & Foster, 2009;
Guarino, Santibanez, & Daley, 2006; Hanushek, Kain, & Rivkin, 2004; Hunt &
Carroll, 2002; Ingersoll, 2001, 2003, 2009; White & Smith, 2005). Retirement rates
have been growing each year, and a large number of teachers hired in the 1960s
and 1970s are now approaching retirement. However, the number of new teachers
entering each year exceeds the retirement rates (Carroll & Foster, 2009; Ingersoll,
2009). This tells us that there are more important contributing factors to the teacher
*Email: jyhong@ou.edu
ISSN 1354-0602 print/ISSN 1470-1278 online

Ó 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2012.696044
http://www.tandfonline.com
418 Ji Y. Hong
shortage than retirement. There are a large number of teachers who are leaving for
non-retirement reasons that contribute to the teacher shortage. Studies on teacher
attrition have consistently found a high rate of attrition among beginning teachers
(e.g. Achinstein, 2006; Darling-Hammond, 1999; Fantilli & McDougall, 2009;
Guarino et al., 2006; Haberman, 2004; Ingersoll, 2001, 2003; Johnson & Birkeland,
2003; Kersaint, Lewis, Potter, & Meisels, 2007; Quartz, 2003; Ulvik, Smith, &
Helleve, 2009; Wiess, 1999). According to Quality Counts 2000, reported in Educa-
tion Week (Chronister, 2000), nearly 50% of teachers entering the profession leave
within the first five years. This high rate of teacher attrition has been reported not
only in the US but also in other countries around the world. For example, the Min-
isterial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (2003)
acknowledged teacher shortages in Australia and predicted continued teacher short-

ages until 2012. Similar trends have been reported in England, which has a consis-
tent vacancy rate (Department for Education and Skills, 2005) and also in China,
which has an increasing attrition rate (Changying, 2007).
Such a high attrition rate affects students’ learning and school district manage-
ment. As Theobald (1990) pointed out, the high attrition rate provokes a discontinu-
ity, which is detrimental to students’ learning and increases school districts’ burden
to recruit teachers. In particular, new teachers’ attrition influences the school’s
quality of teachers. Even though pre-service teachers are well-prepared and well-
educated, much of their learning occurs after they actually begin teaching; thus,
some years of experience are required to reach their most effective level (Gilbert,
2005; Rice, 2003). Since new teachers leave the profession before gaining those
years of experience and learning, it can lead to the loss of quality teachers.
A number of researchers have explored the reasons why teachers leave school
in such alarming numbers (e.g. Cockburn, 2000; Ingersoll, 2001; Ingersoll & Smith,
2003; Kersaint et al., 2007; McCann & Johannessen, 2004; Reynolds, Ross, &
Rakow, 2002; Weiss, 1999). From the analysis of schools and staffing survey and
teacher follow-up survey data, Ingersoll and his colleagues identified four major
reasons for teacher attrition, including school staffing action, family or personal rea-
son, pursuit of another job and dissatisfaction. Among these, Ingersoll highlighted
the pursuit of another job and dissatisfaction as the major contributors for teacher
attrition. They further listed reasons for dissatisfaction, which include poor salary,
student discipline problems, poor administrative support, poor student motivation
and a lack of faculty influence (Ingersoll, 2001, 2003; Ingersoll & Smith, 2003).
Other researchers’ findings echo these findings. For example, Weiss (1999) noted
adverse workplace conditions as the major reason given for leaving the profession.
These conditions include inadequate support from the school administration, poor
student motivation to learn and student discipline problems. Lortie (1975) also
claimed that the occupational context is crucial in facilitating teacher retention. The
variables constituting occupational context are school district enrolment, property
wealth, expenditures, average class size and student demographics. Besides these
variables, supervisory practices, easy access to the teaching position and community
conditions have been identified (Chapman & Green, 1986; Theobald, 1990).
The existing research has generally sought to explain teacher attrition from
an organizational perspective with the emphasis on external factors. However, such
explanations are limited in fully explaining this phenomenon. This is because
decision-making and particular career practices are deeply intertwined with an
individual’s meaning-making process and internal value system, which cannot be
Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice 419
completely explained by external variables alone. Under the same working condi-
tions, individual teachers react in different ways and make different decisions. Some
teachers cope well despite adverse conditions, while others are much more vulnera-
ble to the stressful circumstances. What enables some teachers to survive and be
more competent? Why and how do stayers and leavers make different career deci-
sions?
Teacher resilience and career decision making

There has been an emerging effort in the field of teacher education to understand
teachers’ lives and career decision in light of resilience (e.g. Bobek, 2002; Brunetti,
2006; Castro, Kelly, & Shih, 2010; Gu & Day, 2007; Howard & Johnson, 2004;
Kirk & Wall, 2010; Le Cornu, 2009; Oswald, Johnson, & Howard, 2003; Patterson,
Collins, & Abbott, 2004; Stanford, 2001; Tait, 2008). Resilience has been studied
in the field of developmental psychology and psychopathology for decades, as an
effort to understand high-risk populations, especially at-risk children and youth
(Goldstein & Brooks, 2006; Wright & Masten, 2006). In the area of teacher educa-
tion, researchers began paying attention to teacher resilience in order to better
understand teachers’ identity development (e.g. Kirk & Wall, 2010), job satisfaction
and motivation (e.g. Brunetti, 2006; Kitching, Morgan, & O’Leary, 2009), teacher
burnout and stress (e.g. Howard & Johnson, 2004), career decision-making (e.g.
Bobek, 2002; Tait, 2008) and teaching effectiveness (e.g. Day, 2008; Gu & Day,
2007).
Resilience refers to the process of, capacity for or outcome of successful adapta-
tion despite challenging circumstances (Bobek, 2002; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker,
2000; Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990). Teachers who are resilient tend to respond
positively in the stressful classroom or school environment, demonstrate effective
strategies for working with challenging students, and derive deeper satisfaction in
their work (Gu & Day, 2007; Howard & Johnson, 2004; Stanford, 2001; Tait,
2008). In understanding resilience, Rutter (1990) has emphasized the need to focus
on the process of developing resilience, rather than identifying risk or protective
factors that may change depending on the individual and situation. Since then, resil-
ience research has moved from identifying protective factors that result in adaptive
outcomes to understanding the process of negotiating and overcoming challenges
and developing actual strategies (Castro et al., 2010; Egeland, Carlson, & Sroufe,
1993; Gu & Day, 2007; Luthar et al., 2000; Wright & Masten, 2006). I concur that
rather than simply identifying protective factors or personality traits, it is more fruit-
ful to focus on how the individual teacher’s internal psychological state interacts
with the external environment, and how they perceive and interpret environmental
cues.
As several researchers noted, only a few studies attempted to understand teach-
ers’ resilience as a process (e.g. Castro et al., 2010; Gu & Day, 2007; Le Cornu,
2009), and less attention has been given to exploring two aspects of resilience:
strength and vulnerability. Existing studies tend to focus more on deficits or prob-
lems (e.g. what’s going wrong), than the motivation that encourages teachers to stay
(e.g. what is going right). Thus, this study attempts to understand both leavers and
stayers, and how they are similar or different in negotiating and interpreting external
environments. In particular, this study foregrounds the role of psychological factors
such as self-efficacy, beliefs, values and emotions as the lens to understand the
420 Ji Y. Hong
protective process of resilience. Guarion and her colleagues (Guarino et al., 2006)
extensively reviewed teacher attrition literature published between 1990 and 2004,
but they could identify only two studies (Johnson & Birkeland, 2003; Pigge &
Marso, 1997) that focused on psychological factors as contributing to teachers’
decision to leave. It shows a lack of focus in the current body of literature regarding
how teachers perceive, value and interpret their working conditions and difficulties.
Recognizing and understanding how stayers’ and leavers’ internal psychological
constructs (e.g. self-efficacy, beliefs, value and emotions) interact differently or sim-
ilarly with the external environment will provide a more comprehensive understand-
ing of teachers’ resilience and career decision-making.
Major psychological constructs as lenses to understand teacher resilience

Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy has been considered as one of the most important factors influencing
individuals’ choices of activities or goals, as well as how much effort they expend,
how long they persevere in the face of difficulties and their resilience to failures
(Bandura, 1993; Johnson & Birkeland, 2003; Pajares, 1996). Self-efficacy is defined
as ‘people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of
action required to attain designated types of performance’ (Bandura, 1986, p. 391).
According to Bandura (1977), external influences, environment, and actual ability
or skill do not directly affect the individual’s performance. Rather, they are filtered
through the beliefs about one’s capabilities to perform at designated levels. In other
words, Bandura’s key contention is that ‘people’s level of motivation, affective
states and actions are based more on what they believe than on what is objectively
true’(1977, p. 2). This is because self-efficacy beliefs help determine what individu-
als do with the knowledge and skills they have. For example, one of the partici-
pants in Johnson and Birkeland’s (2003) teacher attrition study mentioned that ‘a
sense of success’ that they can be an effective teacher is an important explanation
for beginning teachers’ career decisions. It seems that teachers who have a stronger
sense of efficacy perceive difficulties as challenges rather than threats, and thus
invest their effort in the face of adversities and direct their efforts in resolving prob-
lems. Whereas those who have a low sense of efficacy believe there is little they
can do to change the problems they perceive, and thus put forth less effort and do
not strongly persevere when difficulties arise. Consequently, teachers who cannot
persevere in the face of obstacles may not remain in the profession (Evans &
Tribble, 1986; Tait, 2008). As several researchers have noted, teachers’ resilience
and career decision are closely related to their efficacy beliefs (Bobek, 2002;
Howard & Johnson, 2004; Rutter, 1990; Tait, 2008).
Beliefs
Besides teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, content-specific beliefs are also frequently
discussed in teachers’ decision-making and career performance (Cross & Hong,
2009; Kagan, 1992; Raymond, 1997; Torff & Warburton, 2005). The content-spe-
cific beliefs include a teacher’s orientation to specific academic content, the nature
of student learning and epistemological conceptions of the content. For example,
Smith and Neale (1989) revealed four different epistemological orientations of sci-
ence teachers, such as discovery, process, didactic and conceptual changes. For
instance, a teacher who has the discovery orientation has the belief that it is impor-
tant to teach science using enquiry-based methods such as exploration and investi-
gation of scientific phenomena, motivating students’ curiosity through the use of
engaging activities, and encouraging them to ask questions. Teachers’ beliefs are
considered an important base for their professional lives because beliefs mediate
behaviour and self perception for the teacher (Korthagen, 2004; Van den Berg,
2002), which may in turn influence their teaching practice in the classroom and
resilience in career decision-making (Kirk & Wall, 2010; Pajares, 1992; Walkington,
2005).
Besides content-specific beliefs, attribution beliefs are also often addressed in
the context of teacher motivation and teacher education. According to Weiner
(1985, 1986), the individual’s causal attributions for achievement outcomes deter-
mine subsequent effort. Weiner suggested three different causal dimensions: stabil-
ity, locus and controllability. If the individual attributes perceived failure to
external, stable, and uncontrollable factors, one is less likely to make an effort and
persist in the tasks (Weiner, 1985, 1986). For example, if beginning teachers attri-
bute their failure to environmental factors such as adverse school policies (external),
believe that an adverse working condition is not going to be changed (stable) and
think there is not much they can do to change it (uncontrollable), then they may be
less likely to put forth volitional effort or persist in their career. On the other hand,
if teachers attribute their failure to insufficient effort (internal), believe that prob-
lems can be resolved (unstable) and think that they can contribute and control cir-
cumstances (controllable), then they are more likely to be resilient and more adept
at planning and adjusting coping strategies (Deater-Deckard, Ivy, & Smith, 2006;
Tait, 2008).
Value
Besides teachers’ various types of beliefs, how much they value their career is
another important psychological factor for their career decision-making. Using the
Wigfield and Eccles (1992) expectancy value theory framework, intrinsic value is
explored in the current study. Intrinsic value refers to the interest and enjoyment the
individual gets from the activity. Eccles et al.’s (1983) empirical study revealed that
the individuals’ performance, persistence and choice of achievement tasks can be
predicted by their values. For example, when teachers enter the profession, they
face numerous tasks to complete each day, and entering a teaching career does not
automatically mean an individual will become a good teacher. As Halisch and Kuhl
(1987) argued, one choice of an action does not directly lead to an outcome; rather
the outcome involves taking steps and completing tasks related to the goal. If indi-
vidual teachers do not find inherent enjoyment or pleasure from those tasks (intrin-
sic value), motivation and effort for completing each set of tasks are likely to be
weakened.
Intrinsic value is often discussed in relation to the sense of vocation (Gu & Day,
2007; Hansen, 1995). Teachers who hold a strong and inherent interest in teaching
embrace their interest to work as a teacher as an inner call to teach. These teachers
believe that their work contributes to making a difference in students’ lives and feel
that teaching yields personal meaning, satisfaction and fulfilment (Estola, Erkkilä,
& Syrjälä, 2003; Hansen, 1994, 1995). As Gu and Day (2007) and Hansen (1994)
422 Ji Y. Hong
noted, teachers’ sense of vocation is an essential quality in promoting resilience,

commitment and identity.
Emotions
Teaching itself is an emotionally-charged profession, and teachers often experience
a high level of stress and emotional burnout (Carlyle & Woods, 2002; Gold &
Roth, 1993; Hargreaves, 2001; Maslach & Jackson, 1984, 1986). Several research-
ers, including some in the USA and in other countries, have identified stress as a
dominant emotional experience of working as a teacher (Ballantyne, 2007; Kelly,
1999) and also as a major explanation for why teachers leave the career
(Cunningham, 1983; Haberman, 2004). In line with these findings, the current study
also focuses on teachers’ emotional burnout in their career decision. Teachers’ burn-
out is not a minor issue in education because it leads to changes in teachers’ atti-
tudes and effort, which can be observed as ‘reduced personal responsibility for
outcomes, greater self-interest, less idealism, emotional detachment, work alienation
and reduced work goals’ (Hughes, 2001, p. 289). Such negative shifts cannot be
ignored, especially when the burnout is frequent, intense and prolonged, because it
has the potential to negatively affect both teachers’ professional development and
students’ learning. In sum, burnout can be a contributing factor for beginning teach-
ers’ reduced motivation to continue their career in teaching. On the contrary, teach-
ers’ positive emotions such as joy, satisfaction and excitement can increase efforts
to deal with stressful situations, confront adversities with optimism and contribute
to promote resilience (Deater-Deckard et al., 2006; Gu & Day, 2007; Tait, 2008).
Given this understanding of critical psychological factors related to teachers’
resilience in their professional lives, this study attempts to answer the following
questions: (1) How do leavers and stayers differ in terms of the value, self-efficacy,
emotions and beliefs? (2) How do the psychological constructs function in perceiv-
ing and interpreting the external environment? (3) How are the psychological fac-
tors related to teachers’ decision to leave the career?
Methods
The nature of the study demands a qualitative approach in order to describe teach-
ers’ perceptions, beliefs and emotions that underlay their career decision. The open-
ended nature of the qualitative approach allows teachers to provide intricate details
of their perceptions and experiences in their own words without being limited by
predetermined questions (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982; Patton, 2002). In particular, this
study employed in-depth interview techniques, so that teachers can freely discuss
their innate beliefs, emotions and values during the time in which they are
struggling in the teaching career (leavers) or successfully performing their teaching
(stayers).
Participants
Participants in this study had gone through the Secondary Science Teacher Certifi-
cate Programme at a large south-eastern university in the USA and had five years
of teaching experience or less. Among them, seven were leavers who already left
the teaching profession, and seven were stayers who are currently teaching and had
Table 1. Participants’ demographic information.
Number of Subject matter &

Group Pseudonym Gender Age Ethnicity years taught grade level
Leavers Bonnie F 24 Caucasian 3 10th, Biology
Rene F 29 Caucasian 2 8th, Earth science
Kara F 30 Caucasian 4 10th & 11th,
Biology
Kailey F 29 African– 1.5 9th, Chemistry
American
Mary F 47 Caucasian 3 9th, Biology
Julie F 35 Caucasian 2 10th, Biology
Cathy F 27 Caucasian 5 9th, Physical
science
Stayers Marc M 26 Caucasian 2 9th, Biology
Bart M 23 Caucasian 1.5 9th, Physical
science
Chris M 26 Caucasian 1 9th, Physical
science
Haylee F 28 Asian– 1 11th, Physics
American
Chad M 31 Caucasian 5 9th, Physical
science
Aaron M 28 Caucasian 5 10th, Biology
Darby F 30 Caucasian 1.5 8th, Physical
science
never considered leaving the profession. All teachers in the leaver group are females
ranging in age from 24 to 47 years, and most of the teachers in the stayer group are
males ranging in age from 23 to 31 years. Participants’ school and work
environment vary from rural to suburban to urban. Additionally, students’
achievement level and their characteristics for each school were different. Each par-
ticipant’s detailed demographic and workplace information is listed in Tables 1 and
2, respectively.
Data collection
Interviews were the primary data for the study. A semi-structured interview protocol
was prepared to serve as a reference guide, and probing questions were also used
based on participants’ answers. Sample interview questions include ‘What are your
beliefs about teaching and learning?’, ‘Tell me about your emotional experiences in
the classroom.’ and ‘Tell me about your interests in working as a teacher.’ Semi-
structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with each participant. The inter-
viewers requested that the teachers reflect on their first few years of teaching, their
challenging and rewarding experiences, their beliefs and values regarding their
teaching career and their emotional experiences in the classroom. The interviews
lasted from 45 to 90 min. Follow-up emails were sent to allow participants written
responses to questions for clarification and to provide more details on earlier
responses from the face-to-face interviews. Both the audiotapes and the written
responses were transcribed and used for data analysis.
424 Ji Y. Hong
Table 2. Participants’ workplace information.
State-mandated
standardized Teacher’s perception about students
Group Pseudonym testing score (%)⁄ Location characteristics
Leavers Bonnie 94.75 Rural It’s pretty low socioeconomic level.
Students are not caring about their
schoolwork, not caring about the
feeling of the person who sits next
to them
Rene 65.5 Rural The school has equal portion of
African–American students and
White students. Students just cursing
you out and walking out whatever

you say, no respect, nothing
Kara 96.75 Urban It’s very wealthy, predominantly
White area. In general students were
fairly responsible and fairly
motivated
Kailey 87.75 Urban It was historically mostly a White,
middle class to upper class high
school
Mary 96 Suburban It’s a school in an affluent area, a
large school. Students won’t stop
talking, cheating, and misbehaving
Julie 95.25 Urban Most of the kids were fairly well
behaved, and came from normal
rural families. 60% were black
Cathy 62 Rural 85 percentage of students living
below the poverty line
Stayers Marc 94 Rural It’s 80% Caucasian. It’s kind of low
income area. We have a lot of
students that are eligible for free and
reduced lunch
Bart 82.75 Rural Around 60% is White and 20%
Asian. Students’ misbehaviours wear
me out
Chris 81.75 Rural We have a large minority
population. The kids are not really
excited about the activities and the
things. I guess you could call it an
under achieving high school
Haylee 93 Suburban It’s a pretty diverse school ranging
not only in ethnicity but also in
socioeconomic status. We have kids
from who are on free and reduced
lunch to all the way up to the rich
and posh neighbourhood.’
Chad 94.75 Rural It’s low socioeconomic are students
are misbehaving. They don’t care
about what they do
Aaron 92.5 Rural It’s predominantly White, upper
middle to upper class community.
It’s one of the highest in its
graduation rate, its test score rate,
and its preparation for college
(Continued)
Table 2. (Continued)
State-mandated
standardized Teacher’s perception about students
Group Pseudonym testing score (%)⁄ Location characteristics
Darby 93 Urban We do have a mixture of the upper
class down to the lower class, down
to the working class. It’s probably
more White. I don’t have to worry
about discipline. That’s what the
administrators do
Notes: ⁄State-mandated standardized testing score is based on 2008 test scores. It is percentage at or
above passing, and an average of four subject areas is provided here (social studies, Science, English
and Language Art and Maths).
Data analysis
The analytic techniques chosen for the current study were the integration of induc-
tive analysis and the constant comparison method. In order to condense extensive
text into core themes that reflect the overall context (Le Compte & Preissle, 1993),
data were inductively analysed. First, each interview was transcribed verbatim, and
the transcript was read thoroughly. When events or beliefs were found to be similar
in nature, they were grouped under broader and more abstract categories (Bogdan
& Biklen, 1982; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). These categories were formulated into
meanings, and the meanings were clustered into themes. After the codes were con-
structed, the data were examined for patterns across all participants. Through this
iterative ongoing analysis, these preliminary categories were gradually modified,
replaced and refined.
Through this inductive analysis procedure, the opposing patterns and regularities
were identified. In order to contrast those themes, the constant comparison method
rooted in the Grounded Theory approach was adopted (Charmaz, 2000; Strauss &
Corbin, 1998). With the pre-developed codes and categories in mind, the opposing
transcripts were constantly compared by reading each interview back and forth in
order to identify commonalities and variations between them (Strauss & Corbin,
1998). A summary of the data is presented in narrative form highlighting major
themes and interpretations to display the meanings teachers’ made of their teaching
experiences and related career decisions.
Findings
Prior to examining specific psychological factors of value, self-efficacy, emotions
and beliefs, leavers’ major reasons to leave the career were asked. Two participants
(Julie and Cathy) mentioned compound reasons: family-related issues, such as preg-
nancy and raising young or sick children and dissatisfaction with the career. The
other five leavers (Bonnie, Rene, Mary, Kara, and Kailey) mentioned difficulties
and dissatisfaction towards work as a teacher that eventually led them to leave their
teaching career, some of them choosing different careers altogether. While not
excluding Julie and Cathy from the data analysis and discussion, this study put
more emphasis on leavers like Bonnie, Rene, Mary, Kara and Kailey, who could
have stayed if the sources of dissatisfaction have been identified and better handled.
426 Ji Y. Hong
Dissatisfaction and challenges as major contributing factors for teacher attrition

have already been reported in the existing studies (e.g. Ingersoll & Smith, 2003;
Marvel et al., 2007; Stockard & Lehman, 2004), however, we still do not know
why some teachers are more resilient than others, how teachers perceive and
interpret challenges differently and how they justify their career decisions. The fol-
lowing findings highlight more detailed and in-depth understanding about the way
leavers’ identify and interpret those challenges and the differences between leavers
and stayers in term of their major psychological factors.
Value
Regarding participants’ intrinsic value (interests or enjoyment of working as a tea-

cher), the two groups of participants commonly shared that they had strong interests
and enjoyment working as a teacher. In particular, their interests were centred on
two aspects: (1) interests in the subject matter itself and (2) interests in helping stu-
dents learn, in particular increasing scientific literacy for students. About three
fourths of the participants across the two groups mentioned their interests in science
subject matter. For example, Kara, who left the teaching career after teaching 10th-
grade biology and 11th-grade chemistry for four years, stated: ‘I was interested in
science first, and then discovered that I really was interested in teaching … I’m just
really interested [in biology]. I just think it’s fascinating. Biology’s fascinating.’
Both groups of participants also consistently mentioned their interest in helping
students learn science. Kailey, who had taught 9th-grade Chemistry and left the
career, mentioned:
I’m interested in it [helping students to understand Science]. I want to show them that
science is fun and it’s not just a boring subject at all and it’s something that they can
apply every day. When they make Kool-Aid, you can talk about solute and solvents
and all that stuff. Chemistry is all around us, too, and you can make them start to
think.
A current 9th-grade biology teacher, Marc, also added, ‘My interest in working as a
science teacher came from sharing my content knowledge, and using all of the
skills to really help others appreciate and understand science.’
In particular, the concept of science literacy was reflected in both groups’
responses. As an attempt to reform science education, national science education
standards (NSES) (National Research Council [NRC], 1996) and the Benchmarks
for Science Literacy (Benchmarks) (American Association for the Advancement of
Science, 1993) introduced and defined science literacy as the knowledge and under-
standing of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision-making,
participation in civic and cultural affairs and economic productivity. Thus, scientifi-
cally literate students can understand science concepts and identify scientific issues
underlying local and national decisions (NRC, 1996). This view was well-articu-
lated in Bart’s comment, who is currently teaching physical science to 9th graders:
I think science literacy is the ultimate goal of science courses, so that people can go
through the world and know why a tree is there, or know the purpose of a tree before
they cut it down, and to realize how important it is to recycle, or drive a car that
doesn’t get two miles per gallon.
As Eccles and her colleagues’ (1983) work has mentioned, intrinsic value func-
tions as a motivation and predictor for individuals’ goal achievement. Given the
findings that both groups of participants commonly showed their interests in work-
ing as a teacher, it is expected that both groups of participants exhibit effective
performance, persistence and choosing to perform necessary tasks, which are the
indicators of motivation. However, the fact that participants in the leaver group
already left the teaching career means that they could not achieve their initial goal
of working as a teacher. If both the leavers and the stayers were interested in
working as a teacher, then why couldn’t the leavers persist and be successful? In
order to further explore the answer for this question, participants’ self-efficacy was
examined. Although participants may value their teacher career and demonstrate
an interest in teaching, if they doubt their ability to successfully teach their class,
then they may not be able to persist in the career. Where value falls short, self-
efficacy may be able to explain beginning teachers’ motivation to stay by placing
emphasis on their beliefs concerning their capabilities to teach and employ knowl-
edge and skills.
Self-efficacy
When participants were asked about their beliefs concerning their capabilities to be
a successful teacher, leavers identified the challenges and difficulties and professed
their lack of efficacy beliefs in managing the classroom and handling misbehaving
students in the classroom. Rene, who left the career after two years of teaching,
talked about her difficulty and lack of confidence in classroom management:
I wasn’t confident at the discipline area. How do you handle the students? There was
no text book written on how to handle a particular student. Yeah, we have books that
give us advice on classroom management, but it doesn’t work for every child. So that
was probably the piece that I was always wondering about because it was always so
unpredictable.
Her comment also showed the lack of guidance and scaffolding for beginning
teachers in terms of classroom management strategies. Cathy, a former physical sci-
ence teacher, continued:
I would say the only thing I wasn’t confident was the class where I knew I had some
big trouble makers, and I would dread every time they walked into the classroom no
matter what kind of great lesson plan I had.
The challenge of classroom management was no different for stayers. For exam-
ple, Bart, a 9th-grade physical science teacher, mentioned that ‘keeping control of
30 kids … the kids are very rambunctious and you have to be with them every sec-
ond to keep their minds focused. It’ll wear anybody out.’ However, in spite of this
same challenge, stayers still expressed their strong efficacy beliefs in handling the
students. For instance, Haylee, an 11th-grade physics teacher, said, ‘I think that I’m
able to give them the freedom to go and investigate things on their own, but then I
also have a control of the class so that I don’t let them completely loose and go
crazy.’
428 Ji Y. Hong
Where does this different sense of efficacy come from in the face of same
adversities? Why do stayers have more confidence in classroom management, while
leavers do not? Data from the current study found consistent pattern across stayers’
responses in that they reported strong support from administrators regarding the
major challenges they faced. Haylee continued:
I think it [administration] affects it [classroom teaching] a lot, because I feel safe. I

know if anything happens I can call on anyone and they’ll help me take care of it, so
I don’t have to worry about anything, discipline, because the teachers and the adminis-
tration trust me and I trust them. So, it’s extremely important, because it provides a
safe environment for me to explore.
Another 8th-grade physical science teacher, Darby, echoed Haylee’s comment:
I don’t have to worry about the discipline. That’s what the administrators do. If I’m
having a problem with a kid, I send them to the administrator and the Assistant Princi-
pal takes care of it, so I don’t have to take up class time to do it which is nice. I think
it’s very important to have support from the administration, because they need to be
there to back you up if there’s a problem.
These comments highlight the importance of supportive administration for establish-

ing teachers’ stronger sense of efficacy beliefs and developing a safe environment
for teachers, which may in turn affect the commitment and resilience that allow
them to remain in the teaching career. The influence of contextual aspects of the
school environment on teachers’ self-efficacy has been evidenced in previous stud-
ies (e.g. Ebmeier, 2003; Hoy, 2000; Hoy & Woolfolk, 1993; Knoblauch & Wool-
folk Hoy, 2008; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007). For example, Hoy and
Woolfolk’s (1993) study showed that teachers’ self-efficacy was most influenced by
the principal’s support. Likewise, Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2007) also
claimed contextual factors such as school atmosphere and a sense of community
affect teachers’ efficacy. In particular, teachers’ self-efficacy is believed to be most
malleable in the early years of teaching (Klassen & Chiu, 2010; Skaalvik & Skaal-
vik, 2007), presumably due to the fact that they do not have enough mastery expe-
rience to boost their efficacy yet, and thus other factors, such as vicarious
experience and verbal persuasion in the form of support from administrators and
colleagues, seem to be the most influential sources of self-efficacy.
As several researchers have reported, novice teachers have a lot of concerns and
are vulnerable to stressful classroom realities (Ashton, 1985; Evans & Tribble,
1986). In particular, given the malleable nature of teacher efficacy early in teaching,
novice teachers can be more sensitive to school climate, principal leadership and
decision-making structures. If they frequently experience failure in managing their
classroom and achieving classroom goals, then there is a greater likelihood they will
develop a weaker sense of efficacy. As efficacy beliefs work to determine how
much effort people will expend on an endeavour and how long they will persevere
when confronting obstacles (Bandura, 1977, 1993; Pajares, 1996), those who have
weak self-efficacy beliefs will put forth less effort and will not strongly persevere
when difficulties arise. Teachers who put less effort into their work do not seek to
improve their own knowledge and expertise, and those who cannot persevere in the
face of obstacles may not remain in the profession.
Beliefs
Regarding participants’ content-specific beliefs, both groups of participants showed
that it is important to teach science in a way that enhances students’ critical and
creative thinking skills. Participants from both groups also shared their beliefs that
not all students learn the same way. However, only stayers supported the idea that
students are the owners of their learning, and thus students themselves should take
charge of their learning process, whereas leavers put greater emphasis on the teach-
ers’ role and its impact than on students’ responsibilities. For example, Mary, a for-
mer biology teacher, emphasized teachers’ active role and responsibility:
I would describe myself as more hands-on, a lot of visual learning, a lot of reinforce-
ment, and a lot of interaction in the classroom. So, I never ever sit down in a class-
room. I was jumping around like crazy doing everything and spending a lot of time
preparing presentations and Jeopardy games and all that good stuff.
Another leaver, Rene, agreed with Mary’s opinion:
I have those beliefs that students had different learning styles that required me to do a
lot more work, a lot more remediation. Maybe one student needed me to read the
questions; whereas, other students didn’t or maybe I had to make up different activi-
ties for a student and other students didn’t require that. I guess it all goes back to the
emotional drain.
As such, leavers’ beliefs impose a burden on the teachers’ role in stu-

dents’ learning, leading teachers to employ exhaustive instructional strategies.
They can easily be stressed out due to the feeling of excessive responsibili-
ties.
In addition to these content-specific beliefs, leavers showed different attribution
beliefs compared to stayers’ beliefs. Unlike stayers, leavers tended to believe that
their personality was not really fitting to the job. For example, Kailey in the leavers
group described that she was not a strong enough disciplinarian:
I don’t think I’m like a strong enough personality to handle 30 teenagers, especially
the kids who don’t have a strong parent support at home and they don’t have strong
discipline at home. I don’t think I’m a strong enough disciplinarian.
In addition to the issue of personality and classroom management, Mary, in the

leaver group, attributed the classroom management problem to her impatient person-
ality:
I didn’t think I had the patience to work with children. But I thought that after
having my own children, I had gained a lot more patience with someone who
really I needed to kind of work at their level and help them, guide them. So, that’s
why I thought, ‘Well, I can do this [teaching].’ … There was a lot of stress going
into the classroom everyday. I sort of felt like I was losing patience with them
[students], so I guess it turned out I was right the first time. I shouldn’t have been
a teacher.
When teachers attribute the problems and difficulties to their personality or to

characteristics that are not easily changed, they are less likely to make an effort and
persist in the tasks (Weiner, 1985, 1986). As Weiner (1985) suggested, what we
430 Ji Y. Hong
attribute our success or failure to is a reflection of our beliefs about the world and
how we interact with the world. If the individual attributes perceived failure to a
stable factor such as personality, then the teacher may be less likely to put forth
volitional effort or persist in the career, because such an attribution implies that the
teacher believes the cause of the problem is internal and stable to the individual,
and not easily changed or controlled.
Emotions
Among the variety of emotions that teachers experience, this study focused on emo-
tional burnout and stress. Most of the participants in both groups agreed that the
teaching profession is associated with a high level of emotional burnout. Aaron,

who is currently teaching biology, explained how teachers perceive and experience
emotional burnout:
How much is emotional burnout associated? Oh, a lot … When you teach and when
you get home, you feel like you’ve worked in the lumberyard for 15 straight hours.
You’re just wiped out. I mean you feel worn down and you feel like you’ve just worn
yourself out and you really hadn’t done any physical activity. It’s just emotionally
worn down. It’s a taxing job. It definitely puts stress on you. I think it’s associated
with it a lot and it’s why a lot of teachers get out of it.
Although both groups of participants agreed that they experienced emotional

burnout, there were significant differences between stayers and leavers. For stayers,
even if they experience emotional burnout, they know how to get over it without
serious struggle. For example, Marc, a 3rd-year biology teacher, used the metaphor
of golf in order to explain how he got over the emotional burnout:
I kind of sometimes think of the teaching profession as kind of like somebody that’s
into golf … You have a lot of bad shots, but then you’ll have that one good shot and
it pulls you back all the time. There’s usually something, even if it’s a small some-
thing each day, that kind of helps you get through that emotional burnout; that helps
you to get to the next day. I think the peaks are so much higher than the valleys. That
really good teaching moment, that really good interaction … that sustains you through
those times when it seems like you’re getting a little burnt out.
Another physical science teacher, Chris, explained how he avoided burnout:
I knew how to separate, ‘Okay. That’s their problem and I care about it, but it’s not
my problem and I’m not going to fix their anorexia or I’m not going to fix their drug
problem. I care about it, but it’s not mine’. I think in the beginning I viewed myself
as just an older version of a high school student. So, they were my buddies and we
were kind of on the same level, and so I think that wasn’t necessarily good. And so, I
think that I matured and knew how to distance myself from the problem and ally
myself with my real peers, which were the other teachers and administrators, and then
I didn’t feel as drained and I got a lot more help, too.
In contrast to the leavers, these stayers tried to establish appropriate emotional

boundaries, which helped them to reduce burnout and stress. As Aultman, Wil-
liams-Johnson, and Schutz’s (2009) study showed, it is important for teachers to
negotiate the appropriate emotional ‘line’ or ‘boundary’ in building a relationship
with students, because it helps them to find a balance between a sense of profes-
sionalism and a useful level of involvement.
Unlike stayers, leavers admitted that they often carried away their emotional
burnout experiences to home or even to the next day of teaching. Also, they often
took the negative events that evoke emotional burnout personally. Mary, a former
biology teacher, mentioned:
I had some incidents with students cheating and having the parents send a note to
higher ups and get it overturned and that was upsetting. I had students pour a bottle
of Listerine into my rigour tank ecosystem and kill all my fish and frogs and things.
After incidents like that, I just couldn’t – it was just too stressful. I just couldn’t do it
anymore. My husband says I take everything too personally. I’m not able to just say,
‘Ah, that’s just the way kids are’. I always am just hurt by it. I felt like, I’m working
so hard and this is what happens.
Bonnie, another leaver, echoed Mary’s experience:
I’m taking things too personally … I need to probably learn how to just let things go.
Things happen. You deal with it and just let it go, but I let things just kind of stew
inside and it carries onto the point where I lose sleep. I get sick. My immune system
becomes weakened and I get sick from it.
Also when leavers were asked what they thought would be the benefits of making a
decision to leave the career, they often mentioned ‘less stress’ and ‘less burnout’.
Teachers’ emotions and their burnout appear to be critical in understanding their
professional lives and career satisfaction. Although both groups of participants in
this study agreed that teaching is an emotionally-laden profession, the ways they
related burnout to themselves were significantly different between leavers and
stayers.
Discussion and implications

These findings help us better understand why some teachers make the decision to
leave the teaching profession, while other teachers do not. The stayers and leavers
showed different resilient attitudes and responses to challenging situations. This
study focused on understanding the transactional process of teachers’ resilience and
decision-making through their psychological lenses of value, self-efficacy, beliefs
and emotions. Although both groups of teachers had substantial interests in working
as a teacher, the ways that leavers perceived and interpreted challenges were differ-
ent from those of stayers. When leavers faced the challenges of managing the class-
room and handling students’ misbehaviours, they often experienced diminished self-
efficacy beliefs, attributed the difficulty to their own personality or characteristics
and experienced emotional burnout. However, under the same challenging situation,
stayers could still maintain strong self-efficacy beliefs with the help and support of
administrators. Additionally, they strategically set emotional lines or boundaries
between themselves and students, so that they would not take negative events per-
sonally or get burned out. Regarding content-specific beliefs, leavers held the belief
that they were heavily responsible for students’ learning, not realizing students’
own role and effort in the learning process.
432 Ji Y. Hong
These findings provide insights about the way teachers’ resilience responses are
processed by foregrounding the dynamic interplay between these teachers’ psycho-
logical constructs and their working environments. In particular, the current study
showed how teachers’ values, self-efficacy, beliefs and emotions are nurtured or
hindered due to the school and classroom environments. For example, stayers who
had better support from school administrators developed stronger self-efficacy
beliefs than leavers. Also, teachers who experienced emotional burnout and stress
contributed the sources of negative emotions to the immediate classroom context,
such as students’ disruptive behaviours and difficulty of classroom management. As
research on teacher socialisation noted, becoming a teacher does not merely mean
working in the school setting, rather, it is about actively responding to, negotiating
and interpreting the classroom and school context (Pollard, 1982; Reinharz, 1979;
Stran & Curtner-Smith, 2009; Zeichner, 1983; Zeichner & Gore, 1990). In particu-
lar, the socialisation process is more salient for beginning teachers than veteran
teachers, as they just began to be exposed to the new roles and environments. This
means that teachers’ resilience can be developed and nurtured, if the right kind of
environment and support are provided (i.e. Bobek, 2002; Castro et al., 2010; How-
ard & Johnson, 2004). Based on the findings of this study, suggestions and recom-
mendations for teachers’ professional development are provided below.
First, we need to pay close attention to the meaning of ‘interests’, and how dee-
ply it is integrated with their sense of identity. As leavers of this study showed,
even if they showed interest in teaching science, it did not function as a sustaining
motivation in the face of challenging circumstances. A group of researchers dis-
cussed individuals’ internal desire and drive in the context of ‘vocation’. (i.e. Estola
et al., 2003; Hansen, 1995, 1998; Nwachukwu, 1992). Unlike surface level interest,
teachers who truly value and enjoy what they do tend to understand that their work
acts as an inner incentive and recognize their conscious decision to choose a career
in education, which provide them personal meaning, fulfilment and satisfaction.
Research on teacher resilience has revealed that teachers who value their career and
who derive deep satisfaction in their work are more likely to have a stronger sense
of identity, resilience and commitment. (Castro et al., 2010; Hansen, 1994, 1995;
Stanford, 2001; Williams, 2003). This is well-articulated in a current 9th-grade biol-
ogy teacher Marc’s remarks;
Well, I think the education field is where I found my true passion and it’s my true
calling. Like any profession there are good days and bad days and not every day is
the greatest day of your life, but I find that it’s worth all of the hard work and time. I
really enjoy kind of sharing my passion for biology with my students. When they see
me excited about something and when they get excited about something, or just
watching them as they’re looking through the microscope or just looking at pond
water and, ‘Oh, man, did you see that?’. Those are the moments. That’s why I do it
trying to share my passion, seeing them so excited about things is why I find a lot of
fulfilment in this profession.
When pre-service teachers choose the teaching profession, they may consciously
or unconsciously be aware of this inner drive to pursue the teaching career. As they
move along the teacher education programme and start working as beginning teach-
ers, the intrinsic value and sense of vocation need to be confirmed and consolidated.
As Hansen (1994, 1995) claimed, vocation is not a completely static and innate
call, rather, it is something accomplished in practice over time. Individual teachers
recognize the fit between their internal drive and what is required in the teaching
career, and find themselves fulfilled through the work. This cannot be a one-time
event, but something that is accomplished through the ongoing process of teacher
identity development. Teacher educators and school personnel need to facilitate this
process by providing more systematic opportunities for teachers to reflect on their
internal drive and how it is realized in what they do, or to identify the blocking bar-
riers in this process. It would be also helpful for pre-service and beginning teachers
to receive feedback and mentoring from experienced teachers who have successfully
gone through this early stage of development. Mentoring and feedback have often
been discussed in terms of providing instructional strategies, classroom management
skills and curriculum development (i.e. Darling-Hammond, 1999; Feiman-Nemser,
1983; Holloway, 2001). However, it is important to recognize the value of mentor-

ing for the identity development process. By paying attention to observable signs
(or lack thereof) of affirmation of identity development – such as delivery of posi-
tive (or negative) emotions, effective (or ineffective) organization of personal and
professional resources and search for supportive relationship and networking (or
being isolated) – experienced teachers will be able to provide meaningful informa-
tion and evidence for beginning teachers who are developing their self-perception
and adapting to the way of life to which they are committed.
Second, as the findings of this study highlighted, leavers’ low self-efficacy in
handling disruptive behaviours should be considered more seriously in teachers’
professional development. According to Bandura (1977), people who are not confi-
dent about a particular activity tend to consider it as a threat and, thus, try to avoid
it. Therefore, a teacher who doubts their ability to handle students’ misbehaviours
may have a hard time developing into an effective and resilient teacher. As self-effi-
cacy researchers mentioned (Bandura, 1977, 1986; Pajares, 1996), verbal persuasion
is one of the contributing factors in boosting a person’s self-efficacy beliefs. Verbal
persuasion includes colleague or school administrators giving encouraging feedback
formally (i.e. evaluation) or informally (i.e. pep talks). Also, recognizing and
acknowledging teacher’s effort and achievement will contribute to boosting their
sense of efficacy. As such, it is important to build a supportive, encouraging and
collaborative school community in order to enhance teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs.
Johnson et al. (2001) found that beginning teachers who felt supported by the
school community interacted with their colleagues more frequently and were more
willing to share responsibility for the school. Having collaborative and encouraging
colleague groups could also prevent teachers from losing interest in the teaching
profession. Previous studies identified supportive relationships with peers and
administrators as one of the protective factors in teacher resilience (i.e. Brunetti,
2006; Howard & Johnson, 2004; Patterson et al., 2004), and yet the process in
which the protective factor influences teachers’ resilience has not been made clear.
The current study sheds light on this process using the lens of teachers’ efficacy
beliefs and how it mediates this process of resilience development.
We also need to focus on the leavers’ beliefs about teaching and learning. If
teachers’ beliefs guide their judgments and actions in ways to burden them, then it
can be one of the contributing factors for teachers leaving the career. Such tendency
was reflected in the leavers who participated in the current study. Ashton and
Gregoire-Gill (2003) mentioned, ‘In the case of deeply held beliefs, such as many
of the entering beliefs of pre-service teacher, the original beliefs are not replaced
but rather continue to influence their thoughts and behaviors’ (p. 102). These
434 Ji Y. Hong
concerns show how difficult it is to change one’s pre-occupied beliefs, and this
realization provides the insight that we need to better prepare pre-service teachers
so that they can establish beliefs conducive to their success in teaching. Beginning
teachers’ professional development training also needs to focus on challenging
teachers’ existing beliefs in order to make their implicit beliefs explicit and
increasing the opportunities for confronting conflicts and inadequacies in teachers’
beliefs (Ashton & Gregoire-Gill, 2003; Borko & Putnam, 1996).
Finally, the current study showed that teachers’ emotions play a significant role in
the way teachers respond to challenging circumstances. Existing studies have empha-
sized emotions as a significant and ongoing part of being a teacher (Day, Kington,
Stobart, & Sammons, 2006; Hargreaves, 2001; Schmidt & Datnow, 2005; Zembylas,
2003). Several researchers noted that positive emotions such as joy, satisfaction and
interest can function to promote proactive efforts to deal with stressful situations and
help teachers build supportive interpersonal relationships, which may in turn contrib-
ute in developing better coping strategies in the face of challenging circumstances
(Deater-Deckard et al., 2006; Gu & Day, 2007; Tait, 2008). As Gu and Day (2007)
put clearly, ‘positive emotions fuel psychological resilience’ (p. 1304). As stayers of
this study showed and echoed by several researchers’ works, setting emotional
boundaries with students can be a useful strategy for teacher resilience (Aultman
et al., 2009; Howard & Johnson, 2004). Despite the importance of teachers’ emo-
tional experiences, most of the participants in the current study reported that they
have never experienced any professional development sessions that talk about how to
handle emotions in the classroom or how to recover from emotional trauma. If the
leavers could have been exposed to professional opportunities for sharing their emo-
tional issues and finding better ways to handle emotionally charged situations, then
they may have made different career decisions. This is a message worth listening to,
especially for teacher educators, professional developers and school administrators.
The challenge of supporting and retaining beginning teachers is a continuing
burden for today’s schools. However, the retention of teachers should not only
focus on the short-term attractions, but should also focus on the long-term agenda
in order to establish a better support system that is genuinely interested in the per-
spective of teachers and in better preparing pre-service teachers, as well. The find-
ings of this study provided in-depth understanding about teachers’ different
resilience responses (why some teachers leave the school but others stay) through
the psychological lenses of value, self-efficacy, beliefs and emotions. Although this
study is exploratory and descriptive in nature, findings of this study provide impli-
cations for teacher educators and school administrators in terms of selecting new
teachers and retaining quality teachers.
In-depth understanding about teachers’ psychological mechanisms will provide
useful information in understanding the ‘profile of resilient teachers’. Even if the
psychological characteristics making up the profile are neither static nor determinis-
tic, such understanding will help teacher educators and school administrators to be
better equipped to identify teacher candidates who have a strong potential for suc-
cess and commitment. In the long run, further research on this topic will eventually
contribute in developing an instrument to identify and measure teacher candidates’
resilience. Second, it should be remembered that resilience is something that can be
learnt, trained and nurtured through a protective and supportive environment (Castro
et al., 2010; Howard & Johnson, 2004). Thus, it is important to foster an environ-
ment where teachers can develop a more resilient and committed identity. Johnson
and her colleagues have emphasized the need to develop an integrated professional
culture in order to retain and develop quality teachers. An integrated professional
culture promotes active communication and interaction between beginning teachers
and experienced teachers, provides attentive care for beginning teachers, shares
responsibilities collectively and acknowledges autonomy of beginning teachers
(Birkeland & Johnson, 2002; Kardos & Johnson, 2007; Kardos, Johnson, Peske,
Kauffman, & Liu, 2001). An integrated professional culture will contribute in fos-
tering a resilient mindset not only for beginning teachers who are struggling, but
also for those who are at a mediocre level of effectiveness, so that those teachers
can reach their full potential.
This study provides avenues to better understand teacher resilience and related
psychological constructs, which deepen our perspective about beginning teachers’

career decision-making. This information benefits teacher education and professional
development, so that we can better prepare, select and retain quality teachers.
References
Achinstein, B. (2006). New teacher and mentor political literacy: Reading, navigating and
transforming induction contexts. Teachers and Teaching, 12(2), 123–138.
American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1993). Benchmarks for science lit-
eracy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Ashton, P.T. (1985). Motivation and teachers’ sense of efficacy. In C. Ames & R. Ames
(Eds.), Research on motivation in education. The classroom milieu (Vol. 2, pp. 141–
174). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Ashton, P., & Gregoire-Gill, M. (2003). At the heart of teaching: The role of emotion in
changing teachers’ beliefs. In J.D. Raths & A.R. McAninch (Eds.), Teacher beliefs and
classroom performance: The impact of teacher education (pp. 99–120). Greenwich, CT:
Information Age.
Aultman, L.P., Williams-Johnson, M.R., & Schutz, P.A. (2009). Boundary dilemmas in tea-
cher-student relationships: Struggling with ‘the line’. Teaching and Teacher Education,
25(5), 636–646.
Ballantyne, J. (2007). Documenting praxis shock in early-career Australian music teachers:
The impact of pre-service teacher education. International Journal of Music Education,
25(3), 181–191.
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. Edu-
cational Psychologist, 28(2), 117–148.
Birkeland, S., & Moore Johnson, S. (2002). What keeps new teachers in the swim? Journal
of Staff Development, 60, 18–21.
Bobek, B. (2002). Teacher resiliency: A key to career longevity. Clearing House, 75(4),
202–205.
Bogdan, R.C., & Biklen, S.K. (1982). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to
theory and methods. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Borko, H., & Putnam, R. (1996). Learning to teach. In D. Berliner & R. Calfee (Eds.),
Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 673–708). New York, NY: MacMillan.
Brunetti, G. (2006). Resilience under fire: Perspectives on the work of experienced, inner
city high school teachers in the United States. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22,
812–825.
Carlyle, D., & Woods, P. (2002). The emotions of teacher stress. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham.
Carroll, T.G., & Foster, E. (2009, April). Learning teams: creating what’s next. Washington,
DC: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Retrieved from http://
www.nctaf.org/resources/research_and_reports/nctaf_research_reports/index.htm
436 Ji Y. Hong
Castro, A.J., Kelly, J.R., & Shih, M. (2010). Resilience strategies for new teachers in high-
needs areas. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(3), 622–629.
Changying, W. (2007). Analysis of teacher attrition. Chinese Education and Society, 40(5),
6–10.
Chapman, D.W., & Green, M.S. (1986). Teacher retention: A further examination. Journal
of Educational Research, 79(5), 273–279.
Charmaz, K. (2000). Grounded theory: Objectivist and constructivist methods. In K.D. Nor-
man & Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 509–535).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Chronister, G. (Ed.). (2000). Who should teach? Quality Counts 2000. Education Week,
19(18), 8–61.
Cockburn, A.D. (2000). Elementary teachers’ needs: Issues of retention and recruitment.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 16(2), 223–238.
Cross, D.I., & Hong, J.Y. (2009). Beliefs and professional identity: Critical constructs in
examining the impact of reform on the emotional experiences of teachers. In P.A. Schutz
& M. Zembylas (Eds.), Advances in teacher emotion research: The impact on teachers’
lives (pp. 273–296). Springer.
Cunningham, W. (1983). Teacher burnout: Solutions for the 1980s: A review of the litera-
ture. The urban review, 15(1), 37–51.
Darling-Hammond, L. (1999). Solving the dilemmas of teacher supply, demand, and stan-
dards: How we can ensure a competent, caring, and qualified teacher for every child.
New York, NY: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.
Day, C. (2008). Committed for life? Variations in teachers’ work, lives and effectiveness
Journal of Educational Change, 9, 243–260.
Day, C., Kington, A., Stobart, G., & Sammons, P. (2006). The personal and professional
selves of teachers: Stable and unstable identities. British Educational Research Journal,
32(4), 601–616.
Deater-Deckard, K., Ivy, L., & Smith, J. (2006). Resilience in gene-environment transactions.
In S. Goldstein & R. Brooks (Eds.), The handbook of resilience in children (pp. 49–63).
New York, NY: Kluwer.
Department for Education and Skills. (2005). School workforce in England. London: DfES.
Ebmeier, H. (2003). How supervision influences teacher efficacy and commitment: An
investigation of a path model. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 18, 110–141.
Eccles, J.S., Adler, T.F., Futterman, R., Goff, S.B., Kaczala, C.M., Meece, J.L., & Midgley,
C. (1983). Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors. In J.T. Spence (Ed.), Achieve-
ment and achievement motivation (pp. 75–146). San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman.
Egeland, B., Carlson, E., & Sroufe, L.A. (1993). Resilience as process. Development and
Psychopathology, 5, 517–528.
Estola, E., Erkkilä, R., & Syrjälä, L. (2003). The moral voice of vocation in teachers’ narra-
tives. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 9(3), 239–256.
Evans, E.D., & Tribble, M. (1986). Perceived teaching problems, self-efficacy, and commit-
ment to teaching among preservice teachers. Journal of Educational Research, 80(2),
81–85.
Fantilli, R., & McDougall, D. (2009). A study of novice teachers: Challenges and supports
in the first years. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(4), 343–356.
Feiman-Nemser, S. (1983). Learning to teach. In L.S. Shulman & G. Sykes (Eds.), Hand-
book of teaching and policy (pp. 150–170). New York, NY: Longman.
Gilbert, L. (April, 2005). Supporting new teachers: What works? Paper presented at the
meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada.
Gold, Y., & Roth, R.A. (1993). Teachers managing stress and preventing burnout: The pro-
fessional health solution. London: Falmer Press.
Goldstein, S., & Brooks, R. (2006). Why study resilience? In S. Goldstein & R. Brooks
(Eds.), The handbook of resilience in children (pp. 3–15). New York, NY: Kluwer.
Gu, Q., & Day, C. (2007). Teachers resilience: A necessary condition for effectiveness.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 1302–1316.
Guarino, C., Santibanez, L., & Daley, G. (2006). Teacher recruitment and retention: A
review of the recent empirical literature. Review of Educational Research, 76(2),
173–208.
Haberman, M. (2004). Can star teachers create learning communities? Educational Leader-
ship, 61(8), 52–56.
Halisch, F., & Kuhl, J. (1987). Motivation, intention, and volition. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Hansen, D.T. (1994). Teaching and the sense of vocation. Educational Theory, 44, 259–275.
Hansen, D.T. (1995). The call to teach. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Hansen, D.T. (1998). The moral is in the practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 14(6),
643–655.
Hanushek, E.A., Kain, J.F., & Rivkin, S.G. (2004). Why public schools lose teachers. Jour-
nal of Human Resources, 39(2), 326–354.
Hargreaves, A. (2001). Emotional geographies of teaching. Teachers College Record, 103(6),
1056–1080.
Holloway, J.H. (2001). The benefit of mentoring. Educational Leadership, 58(8), 85–86.
Howard, S., & Johnson, B. (2004). Resilient teachers: Resisting stress and burnout. Social
Psychology of Education, 7, 399–420.

Hoy, A.W. (2000). Changes in teacher efficacy during the early years of teaching. Paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association,
New Orleans, LA.
Hoy, W., & Woolfolk, A. (1993). Teachers’ sense of efficacy and the organizational health
of schools. Elementary School Journal, 9, 355–372.
Hughes, R.E. (2001). Deciding to leave but staying: Teacher burnout, precursors and turn-
over. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12(2), 288–298.
Hunt, J., & Carroll, T. (2002). Unraveling the ‘Teacher shortage’ problem: Teacher retention
is the key. Washington, DC: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.
Retrieved from http://www.nctaf.org/resources/research_and_reports/nctaf_research_re-
ports/index.htm
Ingersoll, R.M. (2001). Teacher turnover and teacher shortages: An organizational analysis.
American Educational Research Journal, 38(3), 499–534.
Ingersoll, R.M. (2003). Is there really a teacher shortage? (No. R-03-4). Seatle, WA: Center
for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington.
Ingersoll, R.M. (2009, April). The aging teaching workforce: A snapshot. Retrieved from the
National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future: http://www.nctaf.org/docu-
ments/NCTAFAgeDistribution408REG_000.pdf
Ingersoll, R.M., & Smith, T.M. (2003). The wrong solution to the teacher shortage. Educa-
tional Leadership, 60(8), 30–33.
Johnson, S., & Birkeland, S. (2003). Pursuing a ‘sense of success’: New teachers explain
their career decisions. American Educational Research Journal, 40(3), 581–617.
Johnson, S.M., Birkeland, S.E., Kardos, S.M., Kauffman, D., Liu, E., & Peske, H.G. (2001).
Retaining the next generation of teachers: The importance of school based support. Har-
vard Education Letter, 17(4), 6–8. Retrieved from http://www.hepg.org/hel/article/167
Kagan, D. (1992). Implications of research on teacher belief. Educational Psychologist, 27
(1), 65–90.
Kardos, S.M., & Johnson, S.M. (2007). On their own and presumed expert: New teachers’
experience with their colleagues. Teachers College Record, 109(9), 2083–2106.
Kardos, S.M., Johnson, S.M., Peske, H.G., Kauffman, D., & Liu, E. (2001). Counting on
colleagues: New teachers encounter the professional cultures of their schools. Educa-
tional Administration Quarterly, 37(2), 250–290.
Kelly, J. (1999). What stress factors specific to music teaching are critical to ’burnout’ in
secondary school classroom music teachers in Queensland? Paper presented at the
ASME XII National Conference, (N.S.W.: University of Sydney).
Kersaint, G., Lewis, J., Potter, R., & Meisels, G. (2007). Why teachers leave: Factors that
influence retention and resignation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23(6), 775–794.
Kirk, J., & Wall, C. (2010). Resilience and loss in work identities: A narrative analysis of
some retired teachers’ work-life histories. British Educational Research Journal, 36(4),
627–641.
Kitching, K., Morgan, M., & O’Leary, M. (2009). It’s the little things: Exploring the impor-
tance of commonplace events for early career teachers’ motivation. Teachers and Teach-
ing: Theory into Practice, 15(1), 43–58.
438 Ji Y. Hong
Klassen, R.M., & Chiu, M.M. (2010). Effects on teachers’ self-efficacy and job satisfaction:
Teacher gender, years of experience, and job stress. Journal of Educational Psychology,
102, 741–756.
Knoblauch, D., & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2008). ‘Maybe I can teach those kids’. The influence
of contextual factors on student teachers’ sense of efficacy. Teaching and Teacher Educa-
tion, 24, 166–179.
Korthagen, F.A.J. (2004). In search of the essence of a good teacher: Towards a more holis-
tic approach in teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(1), 77–97.
Le Compte, M.D., & Preissle, J. (1993). Considerations on selecting a research design. In
M.D. Le Compte & J. Preissle (Eds.), Ethnography and qualitative design in educational
research. (2nd ed., pp. 30–55). New York, NY: Academic Press.
Le Cornu, R. (2009). Building resilience in pre-service teachers. Teaching and Teacher Edu-
cation, 25(5), 717–723.
Lortie, D.C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Luthar, S.S., Cicchetti, D., & Becker, B. (2000). The construct of resilience: A critical evalu-
ation and guidelines for future work. Child Development, 71(3), 543–562.
Marvel, J., Lyter, D.M., Peltola, P., Strizek, G.A., Moton, B.A., & Rowland, R. (2007). Tea-
cher attrition and mobility: Results from the 2004–05 Teacher Follow-Up Survey.
National Center for Education Statistics, US Department of Education.
Maslach, C., & Jackson, S.E. (1984). Burnout in organizational settings. Applied Social Psy-
chology Annual, 5, 133–153.
Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. (1986). MBI: Maslach burnout inventory (Manual Research edi-
tion). Palo Alto, CA: University of California.
Masten, A.S., Best, K.M., & Garmezy, N. (1990). Resilience and development: Contribu-
tions from the study of children who overcome adversity. Development and Psychopa-
thology, 2, 425–444.
McCann, T.M., & Johannessen, L.R. (2004). Why do new teachers cry? The Clearing
House, 77(4), 138–145.
Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training, and Youth Affairs. (2003).
Demand and supply of primary and secondary school teachers in Australia. Retrieved
January, 31, 2010, http://www.mceecdya.edu.au/mceecdya/teacher_demand_and_
supply_2003,11940.html
National Research Council. (1996). National science education standards. Washington, DC:
National Academy Press.
Nwachukwu, F.J. (1992). Self-concept and occupational membership: Their relationship to
vocational choice. Journal of Career Development, 18(4), 259–269.
Oswald, M., Johnson, B., & Howard, S. (2003). Quantifying and evaluating resilience pro-
moting factors teachers’ beliefs and perceived roles. Research in Education, 70, 50–64.
Pajares, M.F. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy con-
struct. Review of Educational Research, 62(3), 307–332.
Pajares, M.F. (1996). Self-efficacy beliefs in academic settings. Review of Educational
Research, 66(4), 543–578.
Patterson, J.H., Collins, L., & Abbott, G. (2004). A study of teacher resilience in urban
schools. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 31(1), 3–11.
Patton, M.Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Pigge, F., & Marso, R. (1997). A seven year longitudinal multi-factor assessment of teaching
concerns development through preparation and early years of teaching. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 13(2), 225–235.
Pollard, A. (1982). A model of classroom coping strategies. British Journal of Sociology of
Education, 3, 19–37.
Quartz, K.H. (2003). ‘Too angry to leave’: Supporting new teachers’ commitment to trans-
form urban schools. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(2), 99–111.
Raymond, A. (1997). Inconsistencies between a beginning elementary teacher’s mathematics
beliefs and teaching practice. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28(5),
550–576.
Reinharz, S. (1979). On becoming a social scientist: From survey research and participant
observation to experiential analysis. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Reynolds, A., Ross, S.M., & Rakow, J.H. (2002). Teacher retention, teaching effectiveness,
and professional preparation: A comparison of professional development school and non-
professional development school graduates. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(3),
289–303.
Rice, J.K. (2003). Teacher quality: Understanding the effectiveness of teacher attributes.
Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
Rutter, M. (1990). Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms. In J. Rolf, A. Masten,
D. Cicchetti, K. Nuechterlein, & S. Weintraub (Eds.), Risk and protective factors in the
development of psychopathology (pp. 489–509). New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press.
Schmidt, M., & Datnow, A. (2005). Teachers’ sense-making about comprehensive school
reform: The influence of emotions. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 949–965.
Skaalvik, E.M., & Skaalvik, S. (2007). Dimensions of teacher self-efficacy and relations with
strain factors, perceived collective efficacy, and teacher burnout. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 99(3), 611–625.
Smith, D., & Neale, D.C. (1989). The construction of subject matter knowledge in primary
science teaching. Teacher and Teacher Education, 5(1), 1–20.
Stanford, B.H. (2001). Reflections of resilient, persevering urban teachers. Teacher Educa-
tion Quarterly, 28(3), 75–87.
Stockard, J., & Lehman, M. (2004). Influences on the satisfaction and retention of 1st-year
teachers: The importance of effective school management. Educational Administration
Quarterly, 40(5), 742–771.
Stran, M., & Curtner-Smith, M.D. (2009). Influence of occupational socialization on two
preservice teachers’ interpretation and delivery of the sport education model. Journal of
Teaching in Physical Education, 28(1), 38–53.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures
for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Tait, M. (2008). Resilience as a contributor to novice teacher success, commitment, and
retention. Teacher Education Quarterly, 35(4), 57–75.
Theobald, N.D. (1990). An examination of the influence of personal, professional, and
school district characteristics on public school teacher retention. Economics of Education
Review, 9(3), 241–250.
Torff, B., & Warburton, E.C. (2005). Assessment of teachers’ beliefs about classroom use
for critical thinking activities. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 65, 155–
179.
Tschannen-Moran, M., & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2007). The differential antecedents of self-effi-
cacy beliefs of novice and experienced teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23,
944–956.
Ulvik, M., Smith, K., & Helleve, I. (2009). Novice in secondary school – the coin has two
sides. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(6), 835–842.
Van den Berg, R. (2002). Teachers’ meanings regarding educational practice. Review of Edu-
cational Research, 72(4), 577–625.
Walkington, J. (2005). Becoming a teacher: Encouraging development of teacher identity
through reflective practice. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 33(1), 53–64.
Weiner, B. (1985). An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion.
Psychological Review, 92(4), 548–573.
Weiner, B. (1986). An attributional theory of motivation and emotion. Berlin: Springer-
Verlag.
Weiss, E.M. (1999). Perceived workplace conditions and first-year teachers’ morale, career
choice commitment, and planned retention: A secondary analysis. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 15(8), 861–879.
White, P., & Smith, E. (2005). What can PISA tell us about teacher shortage? European
Journal of Education, 40(1), 93–112.
Wigfield, A., & Eccles, J.S. (1992). The development of achievement task values: A theoret-
ical analysis. Developmental Review, 12(3), 265–310.
Williams, J.S. (2003). Why great teachers stay. Educational Leadership, 60(8), 71–75.
440 Ji Y. Hong
Wright, M.O., & Masten, A. (2006). Resilience process in development. In S. Goldstein &
R. Brooks (Eds.), The handbook of resilience in children (pp. 17–37). New York, NY:
Kluwer.
Zeichner, K. (1983). Individual and institutional factors related to the socialization of begin-
ning teachers. In G. Griffin & H. Hukill (Eds.), First years of teaching: What are the
pertinent issues? (pp. 1–30). Austin, TX: University of Texas, Research and Develop-
ment Center for Teacher Education.
Zeichner, K.M., & Gore, J.M. (1990). Teacher socialisation. In W.R. Houston (Ed.),
Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 329–348). New York, NY: Macmillan.
Zembylas, M. (2003). Emotions and teacher identity: A poststructural perspective. Teachers
and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 9(3), 213–238.

Hong2012 Social Strategy and Leave Early

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Hong2012 Social Strategy and Leave Early

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hong2012 Social Strategy and Leave Early

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

This article was downloaded by: [Eindhoven Technical University]

On: 18 November 2014, At: 00:47

Teachers and Teaching: theory and

Why do some beginning teachers

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2012.696044

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Why do some beginning teachers leave the school, and others

Department of Educational Psychology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

(Received 18 October 2009; ﬁnal version received 28 April 2011)

ISSN 1354-0602 print/ISSN 1470-1278 online

acknowledged teacher shortages in Australia and predicted continued teacher short-

Teacher resilience and career decision making

Major psychological constructs as lenses to understand teacher resilience

noted, teachers’ sense of vocation is an essential quality in promoting resilience,

Table 1. Participants’ demographic information.

Number of Subject matter &

Table 2. Participants’ workplace information.

you out and walking out whatever

Dissatisfaction and challenges as major contributing factors for teacher attrition

Regarding participants’ intrinsic value (interests or enjoyment of working as a tea-

I think it [administration] affects it [classroom teaching] a lot, because I feel safe. I

Another 8th-grade physical science teacher, Darby, echoed Haylee’s comment:

These comments highlight the importance of supportive administration for establish-

Another leaver, Rene, agreed with Mary’s opinion:

As such, leavers’ beliefs impose a burden on the teachers’ role in stu-

In addition to the issue of personality and classroom management, Mary, in the

When teachers attribute the problems and difﬁculties to their personality or to

teaching profession is associated with a high level of emotional burnout. Aaron,

Although both groups of participants agreed that they experienced emotional

Another physical science teacher, Chris, explained how he avoided burnout:

In contrast to the leavers, these stayers tried to establish appropriate emotional

Bonnie, another leaver, echoed Mary’s experience:

Discussion and implications

1983; Holloway, 2001). However, it is important to recognize the value of mentor-

psychological constructs, which deepen our perspective about beginning teachers’

Psychology of Education, 7, 399–420.

You might also like