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Influence of Career Satisfaction on Teachers' Attrition and Retention in Public Secondary Schools of Dass Local Government Area in Bauchi State, North Eastern-Nigeria
Martha Adamu Maigari Adam Muhammad 1, Victoria Elooviano Okereke Munir Usman Manufashi 1
1 Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University
Dass road, P. M. B. 0248, Bauchi, 740272, Nigeria
DOI: 10.22178/pos.75-7
LCC Subject Category: L7-991
Received 21.09.2021 Accepted 25.10.2021 Published online 31.10.2021
Corresponding Author: Martha Adamu Maigari marthamaigari@yahoo.com
© 2021 The Authors. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License liiJL.
Abstract. The disregard of teachers' needs had an influence negatively on our educational system in Nigeria. This study was undertaken to explore the influence of career satisfaction on teachers' attrition and retention in public secondary schools of Dass Local Government Area of Bauchi state was also the objective. A survey design was adopted for the study. The study population constitutes 356 teachers in public secondary schools in Dass Local Government. A proportionate stratified sampling technique was employed in selecting 186 teachers as sample respondents in this study. An instrument was adopted from previous studies relevant to the current research and was used for data collection in this study. Descriptive statistics were used to answer the research questions, while multiple regressions were used to test the null hypotheses at a 0.05 level of significance. Findings from the study showed an influence of 26.226 as against P-value =.000) between career satisfaction and teachers and attrition and retention. Findings showed that career satisfaction positively influences teachers' attrition and retention in public secondary schools in Dass Local Government of Bauchi State. The study recommended that the school management and the government improve teachers' working conditions by providing adequate teaching/learning resources.
Keywords: career satisfaction; attrition; retention.
INTRODUCTION
A teacher's responsibility is to develop a learning environment where students feel motivated to learn within the boundaries and expectations of a safe classroom. However, other environmental factors influencing teachers are inadequate facilities and equipment, crowded classrooms, extra working hours and unhealthy relationships with colleagues and administrators [11]. Teacher career satisfaction is paramount, as this may influence the productivity of the teachers in schools [5]. Teachers who are highly satisfied with their career and comfortable with their learning environment would be willing to give their hearts out for their work, unlike those who are unsatisfied. These teachers would be excited, joyful and supportive to their students and colleagues. The unsatisfied teachers may not be able to offer full potential, and this can influence their students. There are adverse effects of career dissatisfaction, chiefly, increased absenteeism, and high level of stress and less likely to meet students'
needs [3]. In particular, occupation dissatisfaction is one of the factors which are influencing teachers opting out of teaching. Rinke [19] increasing teacher turnover rates and a subsequent shortage of qualified teachers is a growing concern globally [7, 13]. Teacher turnover comprises interrelated notions of teacher migration and attrition, where migration describes teachers moving to other schools, while attrition pertains to teachers leaving the profession entirely [14, 19]. However, regardless of the type of turnover, there are always negative consequences for a particular school from which a teacher is departing. Authors [20] suggest a disruptive impact of turnover beyond compositional changes in teacher quality, especially in lower-performing schools. Besides affecting student learning and motivation, teacher turnover negatively affects faculty collegiality and trust and leads to a loss of institutional knowledge, critical for supporting student learning. In the end, overall school per-
formance is affected [14, 15] - teachers career satisfaction in the Nigeria context.
In Nigeria, the role of school working conditions for teachers' career satisfaction has not been given the attention it deserves. Only a few studies have addressed the role of school working conditions for teacher professional well-being. For example, authors [16] analyzed predictors of teacher stress among about 1000 school teachers from 27 schools. In an analysis comprising 12 school factors, student misbehaviour, work demands and negative feedback from students, colleagues and the principal were shown to be the strongest predictors of teacher stress. In addition, authors [4] investigated perceptions of working conditions for more than 50 Nigeria secondary school teachers. Results showed that women were less satisfied with their teaching workload and that younger teacher perceived having less professional autonomy than their more experienced colleagues.
The term 'satisfaction' is often used to describe a condition an individual found his/herself after a particular occurrence. In the developed world, teachers' career satisfaction has been an issue of concern for many years. Hence perennial factors, such as student academic performance, helping students, positive relationships with colleagues and self-growth have been associated with teachers' career satisfaction. The other factors such as perceived low status, low pay, lack of professional autonomy and deprofessionaliza-tion have been linked to teachers' dissatisfaction, as stated in [21]. However, research exploring the sources and influence of teachers' career satisfaction in developing countries is relatively limited [10, 1] saw; it was a term used to describe the state of inner feelings that follows dealings with people or objects. The authors further stated that it has also been directly substituted with feelings such as gratification, bliss, compensation, achievement, joy, excitement, self-actualization. The Microsoft encounter dictionary stated that satisfaction has four different interpretations. One of them is the feeling of pleasure that comes when a need or a desire is fulfilled, the other is a delight, and one is expressed when one is happy with the way something has been arranged or done, compensation for an injury or loss and the fulfilment of a need, claims and desires. One could derive satisfaction from many endeavours in life, but this paper has to do with the satisfaction one gets from his career that will influence attrition or retention.
Author [9] sees career satisfaction as the degree to which people are happy with their careers. Author [6] viewed it as an emotional response to a job situation and often determined by how the outcome meets or exceeds expectation. Secondary school teachers are currently facing many challenges in education and society, which may affect their levels of career satisfaction [2]. This raises concern regarding the attitudes of educators towards their work and their levels of career satisfaction or dissatisfaction, she stated. As cited in [2], almost half of new staff leaves the field during the first five years of their employment. This should be of great concern to all employers because unhappy and dissatisfied employees may mean poor performance and high staff turnover [6]. Identified lack of recognition for work done well through merit or announcement in meetings, lack of material resources which make it difficult for employees to carry out duties and lack of staff development activities which prevent personnel from being equipped with knowledge and skills that they need to provide quality services as factors that can bring about dissatisfactions in the workplace. Author [9] also identified individual attributes or demographic variables characteristics of the career itself and an organizational characteristic as factors that can bring about career satisfaction or dissatisfaction. When the problems mentioned above are perceived in the workplace, dissatisfaction shows up.
Determinants of Career Satisfaction. One of the most studied attitudinal antecedents to employee turnover is one's career satisfaction [12, 17] defined satisfaction as "the degree to which members of a social system have a positive affective orientation towards membership in the system". Again, however, there is no agreed-upon definition of "career satisfaction" [8]. Moreover, there is no surrounding theory; thus, several variations of the construct of career satisfaction involuntary turnover models are represented by different supplementary determinants. Authors [16] hypothesized three potential sources of career satisfaction: conformity of career to self-image, predictability of job relationships, and compatibility of job and other roles. Author [17] integrated research findings on employee turnover and theorized that career satisfaction was determined by pay, integration, communication, and centralization. Author [17] model was expanded upon by [18] to include: role overload, reutilization, centralization, communication, pay, distributive jus-
tice, and promotional opportunity. Finally, authors [18] proposed that workers who participated in career-related decisions, shaped social ties, earned fair compensation, and had promotional opportunities were more likely to be satisfied.
On the other hand, repetitive work reduced job satisfaction. Increased career satisfaction, in turn, was linked to the increased intention of staying, which was negatively influenced by professionalism, relationship responsibility, and wideranging instruction. Against this backdrop, the study seeks to determine the influence of career satisfaction on teachers' attrition and retention in Bauchi state public secondary schools.
Research Question. To what extent does career satisfaction influences teachers' attrition and retention in public secondary schools of the Dass local government area in Bauchi state?
Research Hypotheses. There is no significant influence between career satisfaction and teachers' attrition and retention in public secondary schools of Dass local government area in Bauchi state.
METHODS AND MATERIALS
This study used a survey design. The population consists of 356 Teachers of all the Dass Local
Government Area public secondary schools in Bauchi State. The study was populated with 186 questionnaires. The stratified random sampling method selected 20 % of Dass Local Government Area teachers in Bauchi state. The research instrument used to collect data was "The questionnaire titled Determinants of Teachers Attrition and Retention Questionnaire".
The questionnaire was designed into five scale options as follows: point 1 - very large extent; point 2 - large extent; point 3 - moderate extent; point 4 - small extent; point 5 - minimal extent.
Out of 186 copies of the instruments administered, a total of 150 copies were returned, representing 87.5%.
Multiple regression and correlational information were employed to respond to the research questions and test the null hypotheses formulated in the study at 0.05 significant levels.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In the tables below, items 1-9 show that career satisfaction (CS), to a large extent, influences their teacher's attrition and retention, which is a clear indication that career satisfaction has an impact on teachers' attrition and retention.
Table 1 - Descriptive statistics of the influence of Career Satisfaction on Teachers Attrition and Retention in Public Secondary Schools of Dass Local Government Area in Bauchi State __
No Items N Mean SD Remarks
1 To what extent are you satisfied with teaching as a career 186 4.02 1.076 Large Extent
2 To what extent are you satisfied with recognition from your immediate supervisor 186 3.67 1.066 Large Extent
3 To what extent are you satisfied with your workload 186 3.78 1.085 Large Extent
4 To what extent are you satisfied with involvement in decision making in your workstation 186 3.67 1.148 Large Extent
5 To what extent are you satisfied with the method and process of teachers' promotion 186 2.98 1.340 Moderately
6 To what extent are you satisfied with teachers empowered in your school. 186 3.29 1.342 Large Extent
7 To what extent are teachers provided with an avenue to express their concerns and their solutions 186 3.29 1.199 Large Extent
8 The extent to which establish teacher leadership positions (e. g. lead teacher, mentor team leader, representative to key district committees) 186 3.38 1.302 Large Extent
9 To what extent are you satisfied with the ways teachers are recognized for a "job well done" - both formally and informally 186 3.51 1.290 Large Extent
Grand Mean 31.59 10.848 Large Extent
Table 2 - Hypothesis: Regression Analysis of the influence between Career Satisfaction on Teacher's Attrition and Retention in Secondary Schools of Dass Local Government Area of Bauchi State
Model Sum of Square Df Mean square F P.Value Remark
Regression 6.589 1 6.589 14.764 .000 Not accepted
Residue 19.637 44 342
Total 26.226 45
Notes: a) Predictors (Constant): Career Satisfaction; b) Dependent variable attrition, retention
The low P-value (.000) indicated that both attrition and retention of teachers are significantly related to the teachers' career satisfaction. The coefficient for teachers' career satisfaction indicated that each additional increase attrition and retention by approximately 14.764 while controlling everything else in the model. Furthermore, an additional unit of teachers' career satisfaction increases average attrition and retention by 26.226 while holding the other variables constant. This indicated that the null hypothesis was not accepted. The alternative hypothesis was that career satisfaction significantly influences teachers' attrition and retention in Dass local government area secondary schools in Bauchi state.
CONCLUSIONS
This study aimed to identify where attrition and retention manifested themselves within a school. Maintaining a high level of teacher quality is a critically important factor that helps to ensure student attainment. Teacher perceived conduct control accounted for the most significant variance. Knowing what factors cause teachers to leave and stay could alleviate the continued challenge of staffing and retaining teachers in rural schools. Author [2] concluded that inconsistent teachers' consistency disrupts instruction's stability, continuity, and cohesion, affecting student performance. To increase teacher retention, stakeholders must focus on increasing teacher
salaries, providing adequate support measures, managing student discipline issues, and lessening the number of paperwork teachers is expected to complete.
Based on the finding of this study, the following recommendation was made. The study also recommends that the school management and the government improve working conditions by providing adequate teaching/learning resources. Furthermore, security institutions should ensure the teacher's safety and secure the schools. Teachers do not feel secure as insurgents attack the schools on a day-to-day basis. Finally, the school management should motivate teachers by giving surprise packages such as soft loans, free medical care, free accommodation, which could motivate them to enhance their job retention.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the management and staff of public secondary schools in Dass Local Government Area, Bauchi State, North Eastern-Nigeria, and those who responded to the findings.
Conflict of interest
The author's declared that there is no conflict of interest.
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