Classroom teaching is a demanding and arduous profession, requiring teachers to have a suitable personality to succeed and persevere. However, academic institutions usually determine acceptance based solely on cognitive test scores, despite research indicating the added value of personality measures. This study presents the MESILA personality…

For secondary school teachers, developing a teacher identity is complicated by spoken or implied expectations of the need to be an expert in the skills and knowledge of one's subject discipline. Since 2009, the Teacher as Practitioner study (N = 764) has explored the effect of continued subject discipline practice on teachers' identity and…

In Kazakhstan, an increasing school student population, low rates of graduates entering the profession, and high novice teacher attrition have made the attraction and retention of quality teachers a critical issue. To investigate this problem, the authors draw on the 2018 TALIS dataset involving a survey of 5201 Kazakhstani teachers from 275…

Teachers have faced a multitude of demands over the past two years and faced new challenges as schools returned in the fall of 2021. Using the Job Demands-Resources model as a framework, the current study identified factors contributing to teacher burnout following the COVID-19 pandemic. To examine predictors of teacher burnout, the authors…

This study explored factors that were important to primary teachers' motivation due to increased pressure caused by changes associated with a global neoliberal movement. A questionnaire (n = 243) was conducted to gain an overview of factors causing pressure on teachers. Interviews (n = 13) were conducted to reveal factors relevant to teachers'…

Alternative teacher certification routes in the United States gained recognition in response to the teacher shortage since the 1980s. However, the unique challenges these teachers face result in concerns of quality and retention. The purposes of this study were to (a) investigate novice alternatively certified teachers' (ACT) perspectives on…

What a 'successful career' means to teachers is little understood, although this would allow schools and educational governance alike to support teachers' development, and to reduce their attrition. This study examines how 240 school teachers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland conceptualize career success, as compared to 185 health-care/social…

While teacher retention is a pressing issue for many jurisdictions, Singapore has a relatively low teacher attrition rate. Drawing on the experiences of student teachers from the sole institute for pre-service teacher education in Singapore, this article argues that it is important to expose teacher candidates to a substantial period of school…

This article reports findings from a study of 14 beginning teachers in their first year of teaching in primary schools. By the end of the first year, half were reconsidering their long-term commitment to teaching. The study found they were considering leaving because they were struggling to be the teachers they had envisaged being. One reason for…

Early career exit from teaching has reached epidemic proportions and appears intractable. Previous attempts to find solutions are yet to make much of an inroad. The aim of the research was to discover what nine beginning teachers required to remain in the classroom, by adopting a phenomenological approach. The authors identified participants'…

The authors conducted a phenomenological inquiry that described factors that influenced two novice and two experienced teachers' decisions to remain in the teaching field. These teachers taught in both Title I and non-Title I elementary schools, and their teaching experiences ranged from four months to 38 years. Data for this research…

The Summer Curriculum Writing Institute (SCWI) supports graduates of a university-based teacher education program during the induction years and beyond with the aim of impacting teacher quality. The purpose of this article is to describe the development, goals, research, and lessons learned during SCWI from 2005-12. The week focuses around the…

In this qualitative study the authors investigated how prospective teachers' professional goals were understood by participants. Interviews of 25 prospective teachers from the United States were collected as part of a larger mixed-methods study. Qualitative data from interviews (the focus of this study) examined the profiles of the three…

The purpose of this paper is to explore teacher motivation and well-being. Our analysis focuses on two central concepts, the notion of a "calling to teach" and of teacher "hopefulness." Data from 205 preservice and inservice teachers were collected to determine teachers' sense of calling and level of hope. Results indicate that overwhelmingly,…

The problem of teacher shortage is of grave concern internationally, impacting countries such as the US, England and Australia. One popular approach to addressing issues of teacher attrition has been to hire international teachers (a.k.a. overseas-trained teachers) to fill the gap. In this paper the authors document the challenges and barriers…