Science Teaching in Texas: Investigating Relationships among Texas High School Science Teachers' Working Conditions, Job Satisfaction, and Retention

In many critical subject areas our schools are facing a need for teachers, particularly in the "high-need" areas of mathematics, science, and bilingual education. Educators and researchers alike have identified teacher turnover as a major contributor to the challenge of finding and keeping highly-qualified teachers in American classrooms. The purpose of the three studies in this dissertation was to investigate the potential role of working conditions in explaining the turnover rates of high school science teachers.

I used data collected by the Policy Research Initiative in Science Education (PRISE) Research Group during the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 academic years, from their random, stratified sample of 50 Texas high schools and their 385 science teachers. The first study focuses on the development of a rubric assessing individual science teachers' working conditions, which involved the examination of multiple data sources, including school master schedules and AEIS reports to determine the working conditions of 385 science teachers. Analyses from this study suggested that (a) science teachers from small schools experience tougher working conditions than science teachers from both medium and large schools; (b) veteran science teachers experience tougher working conditions than both induction and mid-career teachers; and (c) science teachers from lower minority schools experience tougher working conditions than science teachers from schools with higher MSEPs.

The second study focuses on the relationship between high school science teachers? working conditions and their levels of job satisfaction. Findings included that (1) science teachers from small schools experienced tougher working conditions, even though they were more satisfied with their jobs; (2) veteran science teachers experienced tougher working conditions and were more satisfied with their jobs; and (3) science teachers from lower minority schools experienced tougher working conditions and were more satisfied with their jobs.

The final study focuses on the relationship between high school science teachers' school size, MSEP, teacher type, working condition scores, job satisfaction scores, and retention status. Results of independent samples T-test revealed no significant difference in working condition scores for "stayers" versus "non-stayers." Pearson's correlation revealed school size and the experience level of the science teacher as significant predictors of working condition and job satisfaction scores. Results of the discriminant analysis revealed (a) working condition scores and job satisfaction scores as not significantly predicting science teacher retention; and (b) teacher type (beginning, mid-career, and veteran) as the only significant predictor of teacher retention.