Program

Education Doctorate

Number of Pages

144

Year Approved

2024

First Advisor

Judith Nagel

Second Reader

Tracy Reimer

Third Reader

Krista Soria

Abstract

This quantitative study explored the role of school principals as an intervention to the teacher shortage crisis in the United States. The shortage of teachers is not a new topic in public policy and research; however, the strategies set forth in prior literature have not yielded substantive change to this stubborn problem. Using data from the 2020–2021 National Teacher and Principal Survey, this study analyzed the relationship between the perceptions of early career teachers (within the first 5 years of teaching) about behaviors of their school principals and these teachers’ intentions to remain in the teaching profession. Specifically, this study examined teachers’ perceptions of five behaviors relating to communication, vision, feedback, support, and schoolwide discipline. The analysis showed that teachers who held favorable perceptions about their principals’ behaviors in all five areas had stronger long-term intentions about remaining in teaching than teachers who reported unfavorable perceptions. The study relied on burnout theory as a means to understanding teacher burnout, which contributes to teacher attrition and subsequent teacher shortages. The data demonstrated that school principals play a critical role in interrupting this cycle by engaging in communication, feedback, vision-casting, and student disciplinary practices that teachers perceive as supportive. Keywords: teacher attrition, burnout, teacher retention, principals, communication, feedback

Degree Name

Education Doctorate

Document Type

Doctoral dissertation

Terms of Use and License Information

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

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