Description
Objectives: The objectives are to a) identify the distinctive self-belief characteristics of existing teachers who score well on resilience and well-being measures and how these may relate to intention to quit the teaching profession and b) to explain the in-depth experiences of individuals who have left teaching and those who have remained. Here objective a) will be examined. Background: This research uses positive psychology. There has been research on the use of positive psychology techniques on students but little on teachers. Examining teachers could be useful as there are currently considerable problems with their recruitment and retention. Literature has been examined on the implicit self-beliefs of hope, self-efficacy, dispositional optimism, job-crafting and mindset and how these may impact on resilience and well-being. Methods: Objective a) is examined quantitatively using questionnaires with secondary school teachers (n=279), recruited via e-mail and social media. Measures included the Adult Hope and PERMA scales, alongside demographic information such as years of service and gender. Results: Multiple regressions were carried out to investigate whether total calling, total mindset, total optimism, total hope score and average self-efficacy could significantly predict teachers' resilience, well-being and intention to quit. Hope, self-efficacy and optimism were significant predictors of resilience, F(5, 255) = 80.06, p<.001. A logistic repression analysis showed only calling significantly predicted intention to quit. Conclusion: Results indicate that more consideration should be paid to maintaining a sense of calling in teachers to increase recruitment and retention.| Period | 12 Sept 2019 |
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| Event title | British Psychological Society Psychology of Education Section Annual Conference 2019: Getting Reflective: Psychology as a Force for Good in Education |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Manchester, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | National |