About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 18. School Readiness/Childcare

Abstract

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Annual turnover among early care and education (ECE) teachers across the U.S. is greater than 20% - substantially higher than the 10% turnover rate of kindergarten teachers (Amadon et al., 2023; Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d.; McLean et al., 2021). The workforce shortages caused by high turnover restrict families’ access to high-quality ECE programs for their children and disrupts children’s learning and development.
Although previous research has identified some characteristics associated with ECE turnover (e.g., low compensation, high stress, workplace dissatisfaction; Kwon et al., 2020; Schaack et al., 2020) the field lacks a comprehensive explanation for these workforce trends at a national level. We seek to address this gap by answering: How do profiles of teachers who have expressed an intention to leave their job differ from those who have not expressed this intention in terms of intraindividual, interpersonal, and workplace contextual characteristics?

This proposal uses data from the 2019 National Survey of Early Care and Education (National Survey of Early Care and Education Project Team, 2022), a nationally representative survey of the U.S. child care workforce. We will examine data from the 4,667 center-based workforce members who have valid responses to this question, “In the past 3 months, have you done anything to look for a new job or an additional job?” as well as associated data from their employing program’s corresponding center-based survey.

Our analytic strategy relies on factor mixture modeling (FMM; Lubke & Muthén, 2007) to identify potential unobserved sources of difference among ECE teachers’ commitment to their work. These differences may be differences in kind (e.g., teachers who may be looking for work for different reasons); in degree (e.g., varying odds of looking for work depending on contextual characteristics), or differences in both kind and degree (e.g., differences in odds of looking for work when a teacher who is dissatisfied with their role makes a low versus high salary). The potential for multiple sources of heterogeneity within ECE teachers’ commitment to their work makes FMM an appropriate analytic technique as it allows for the identification of underlying latent classes (i.e., differences in kind) as well as assessing the distribution of underlying factors (i.e., differences in degree). See specifics about our proposed analyses: https://osf.io/5hkm2/?view_only=095c0d04096f4cd6bcfffe53b139b9d3.

We hypothesize (1) that there will be distinct profiles of turnover-related characteristics for members of the ECE workforce and (2) that these profiles will differ for teachers who express a desire to leave compared with those who do not.

The findings will add to our understanding about what factors contribute to ECE teacher attrition and provide insights into programs and policies that could promote retention and thereby enhance children’s outcomes. Indeed, this research will demonstrate how different mechanisms may be necessary to promote retention for different professionals or in different settings. For example, centers that are not able to provide higher pay to their teachers may need to consider efforts that increase positive workplace relationships. This in-depth understanding of ECE teachers’ turnover decisions will support efforts to stabilize the ECE workforce.

Author information

Author	Role
Erin Grace Fox, M.P.H., The Ohio State University	Presenting author
Erin Tebben, The Ohio State University	Non-presenting author
Sarah N. Lang, The Ohio State University	Non-presenting author
Abby Bush, The Ohio State University	Non-presenting author

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