Leavers, Movers, Stayers: The Role of Workplace Conditions on Teacher Mobility Decisions

The author explores whether three workplace conditions are related to teacher mobility decisions. The modeling strategy incorporates a series of binomial and multinomial logistic models to estimate the effects of administrative support, classroom control, and behavioral climate on teachers’ decisions to quit teaching or switch schools. The results indicate that two of the three workplace conditions are strongly related to the mobility decisions of first-year teachers, while experienced teachers are not strongly influenced by workplace conditions. The analysis also finds that the workplace conditions have differential effects on movers and leavers, suggesting the importance of modeling these two groups separately.