Factors Influencing Teachers ’ Performance and Retention

It is critical to retain high quality and qualified teachers to provide high quality education in schools. Turnover intentions of teachers in schools have a negative impact on student satisfaction and on their educational development as well. The retention and performance of school teachers is possible through their job satisfaction to which reduces their turnover intentions and lead to their higher performance. Therefore, it is vital to consider all possible factors that impact on the teacher’s performance and on their turnover intentions. Thus, due to the importance of teacher’s turnover issue, the purpose of this paper is to review the literature relevant to teacher’s performance and factors that reduce teacher’s turnover intentions from schools. This study also aims to review the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors to assess teacher’s performance and their staying intentions. Dimension for intrinsic motivation is the satisfaction derived from teaching, recognition, enjoying teaching, career development, the challenging and competitive nature of teaching, teaching as one goal in life and control over others. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation mainly includes the award applied externally as a salary or wages, free accommodation, educational progress in paying premiums, meals, additional payments in case of financial problems, paid leave and free medical assistance. The existing literature has identified major influential factors such as working conditions, administrative support and student behavior impacting teacher’s performance and their retention. This study also provides some directions for future research in this regard as well.


Introduction
After home, the school is the most important place for students to learn and develop their educational and social competencies.Teachers play a pivotal role in providing education to the students.Every school strives to recruit good and qualified teaching staff that can deliver quality education to its students.Only highly qualified and committed teaching staff or teachers can produce effective results by producing good quality of students, who contribute to their country in future.Therefore, it is crucial for schools to keep the talented or key teaching staff.Because only qualified teachers can give best education to the students.Thus, for the quality of education the quality of teachers matter a lot.But if the qualified teachers are having leaving intentions from the school or teaching field, then it will have negative impact on students and school's performance as well.Thus, it is very essential to keep the highly qualified teachers to deliver good quality of education.The teachers can be retained successfully only if they are satisfied with their jobs.The job satisfaction leads to their superior performance and retention as well.Therefore, the motivation is a mechanism through which the teacher's can be loyal to the schools.Only motivated teachers perform well and produce good results by delivering the quality education to students.Teachers are the creators of future leaders.Thus, there is truly need indeed to keep teachers satisfy from their jobs and careers.They will not only produce good quality leaders of future but also will contribute in the development of any country by education the future generation.

Study Background
The teacher turnover rate in education sector is higher than for any other sectors (Liu & Meyer, 2005).Ingersoll and Smith in (2003) stated that between 40% and 50% of all beginning teachers usually leave this profession after five years of teaching.The consistent teacher's turnover result into teacher shortage for increased student populations.Many studies of the West have provided evidence of teachers shortage issues in schools of various countries, i.e, U.S, (Edgar & Pair, 2005;Ingersoll, 2003;Liu & Meyer, 2005), Netherlands (Tigchelaar, Brouwer, & Korthagen, 2008), and Hong Kong (Choi &Tang, 2009).Many researchers of other countries like Australia have also highlighted this issue in schools (Goddard, O'Brien, & Goddard, 2006).Across the US, nearly half a million teachers leave their schools each year (Boyd et al., 2011;Alliance for Excellent Education, 2008).Many researchers investigated the factors that impact turnover of permanent and temporary teaching staff in the context of U.S (DeAngelis & Presley, 2007;Johnson, Berg, & Donaldson, 2005).According to (Boyd et al., 2011), the teacher retention research can be done by exploring the relationship between teacher turnover and teachers' own characteristics, student body characteristics, and school characteristics.However, the research on teacher attrition and turnover is based on two separate aspects.One perspective emphasizes on teacher demographics, individual characteristics, and salary (Boe, Bobbitt, Cook, Whitener, &Weber, 1997;Shen, 1997;Stinbrickner, 1998).While the other aspect of research focuses on school characteristics, governance and working conditions (Liu, 2007).The above factors should be considered seriously to avoid the turnover issues of teachers.Because these factors lead to job teachers job satisfaction which results to superior performance and retention of school teachers in the long run.Also it is very important to motivate teachers to perform well.According to Mary (2010), both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation leads to teacher's superior performance.These motivational factors such as allowances, salary and recognition etc impact positively on their satisfaction which results into their effective performance as well.Thus, this paper aims to highlight the important factors by reviewing the western literature that impact teacher's job satisfaction, performance and reduces their turnover intentions.

Study Objectives
By considering the importance of qualified teachers and their retention in schools.The purpose of this study is to review some of important literature regarding the factors that impact on teachers' performance and retention.

Problem Statement
Teachers are having low performance due to the insufficient motivational factors that lead to their high turnover intentions as well.This bad or poor performance impacts the student's education as well.The poor performance of teachers is a global phenomenon that cannot be ignored in Western as well as Eastern context.The poor teacher's performance lead to several problems for schools such as low students satisfaction from their schools, students turnover intentions, hiring cost of new staff, delay in delivery of education.All such poor performances of teachers lead to poor quality of students that become useless for their societies.And may become a burden on their country in future.Also the leaving intentions of teachers destroy the good reputations of a school as well.Due to turnover issues, the students' education and time suffers a lot that lead to their dissatisfaction from their studies and school as well.Both poor teachers' performance and high turnover issues impact on school performance as well.

Research Question
Based on the objectives of this study, the paper aims to answer the following question, What are the influential factors that lead to teacher's good performance and their retention in schools?

Study Significance
This study will highlight some important motivational factors and other factors as well that may contribute to teachers' good performance and will impact on their retentions as well.By identifying the factors from the review of literature the administration of school can make policies and develop strategies for retention and good performance of teachers.This study of literature review will show the importance of motivational and other factors towards teacher's job satisfaction and retention.

Literature Review
The paper will first review some literature relevant to teacher's job satisfaction and will then discuss some of the important factors that results into teacher's job satisfaction and their performance and retention as well in school.

Teachers' Job Satisfaction
Job dissatisfaction causes stress and burnout for teachers (Pearson & Moomaw, 2005).In addition, Shann (1998) highlighted the importance of teacher job satisfaction for a successful educational reform.Thus, reduction in teacher turnover and reform in education can be facilitated by identifying variables that impact teachers' job satisfaction (Tickle, Chang, & Kim, 2011).Perie, Baker, and American Institutes for Research (1997) investigated the relationship of characteristics of teachers' backgrounds, teachers' school, teachers' compensation, working conditions with teachers' job satisfaction.And found a significant relationship between favorable working conditions (administrative support and leadership, school atmosphere, student behavior, and teacher autonomy) and teacher job satisfaction.Woods and Weasmer (2004) stated that when teachers show their interest in moving and achieving towards organizational goals then their job commitment and satisfaction increases.Shann (1998) argued that teacher job satisfaction is the predictor of teacher retention and a determinant of teacher commitment which contributes to the school effectiveness.Liu and Meyer (2005) found a direct association between teachers' job satisfaction and teacher turnover and further found that, teachers have different perceptions regarding job satisfaction which impact on their intention to stay in teaching or school.

Motivation
According to (Okumbe, 1998) motivation is an intellectual or mental deficiency that triggers the behavior, a drive that came to a goal or incentive.Oxford dictionary defines the concept as the physiological function that arouses an organism to action to achieve a desired objective.In contrast motivation is defined by Hornby (2000) as incitement to act or move.

Extrinsic Motivation
According to Sansone & Harackiewicz (2000), the most common outcome from the achievement of externally administered compensation (extrinsic motivation) includes salary/wages/fees, prestige, material possessions and a positive assessment by others.According to Mary 2010 extrinsic motivation of teachers include, externally rewards like salary/wages/fees, free accommodation, compensation for free medical care, free meals, leave and prepaid payments in case of financial problems, as well as extra teaching allowances.For the purpose of this study extrinsic motivation of teachers includes; allowances, salary, leave, material possession, prepaid payments.

Intrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation is obtained within the person or activity and positively affects behavior, performance, and well being (a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous).Unlike the prevailing, intrinsic motivation is said to exist when the behavior is performed for its own sake, not for social or material intensifies.According to Mary (2010) intrinsic motivation of teachers includes profession satisfaction, pleasure in the field, recognition, controls over others, the challenging and competitive nature of teaching, career development, and teaching as the primary goal in life.For the purpose of this study intrinsic motivation includes; satisfaction and pleasure in teaching, recognition and teaching as the primary goal in life.

Motivation and Performance
According to Mary (2010), there are a variety of views on the motivation of teachers in Africa and South Asia.She adds that the majority of teachers working in schools in developing countries are not well motivated by a combination of declining in morality, satisfaction in the workplace, lack of controls, inadequate incentives.For example, Bennel 2(004) reports the 2000 EFA country Assessment for Pakistan underlined that bad teacher motivation is a major problem, which make more intense by political interference.The global development report ( 2004) has carefully summarized these concerns about teachers: 'Cases of misconduct among the teachers at the moment are located in many settings: teachers seem drunk and physically abused, or just doing nothing.This low quality education is not at all education.(World Bank, 2004: 43).
Intrinsic rewards lead to great performance.These embedded rewards made role models and communicate standards as well.Bennel (2004) pointed out that an important sector of the private education and their recognition improved the diverse faculty.He also argues that teachers from the private sector may often be seen by parents and the public in a more positive light, because it more hard and generally less well paid work, but achieve better learning outcomes.Therefore, this sector is developed under great public acclaim.Torrington et al. (2002) has shown that poor HRM effect seriously employees satisfaction.Effective management, training of head teachers are therefore required to make significant improvements in teacher behavior and performance.
According to Maicibi (2003), increasing workload, class of large sizes, other topics and programs, and changing curricula are major demotivator factors in many countries.In addition he argues that the size of classes and heavy load make teachers to become resistant against new teaching methodologies and other innovations in the field.Dungu (2000) pointed out that head teachers live far away from school and spending a lot of time while traveling to school which also affect their performance.According to (Wayne, 1998) reward in form of money has a stronger influence on performance of employees.While, Armstrong (1996) emphasizes the importance of extrinsic motivation when he said that money offered the possibility of carrying out a number of different purposes.Maicibi (2003), in accordance with the above opinion emphasized that the money is strong job satisfier for junior than that of senior non teaching and academic staff.When teachers are motivated, their performance will be increased at work at high level.

Effect of Extrinsic Motivation on Performance
Although both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors impacts teacher's satisfaction and performance.The literature has also highlighted some other important factors that also impact the teacher's performance by demotivating them or by developing the intentions to leave the school or teaching field.Thus, such factors that impact positively on retention or staying intentions of teacher's are equally important to consider for teacher's satisfaction.

Factors Influencing on Retention of School Teachers:
The literature of teachers' retention has identified following of the major factors that impact on school teacher's turnover intentions.

Teacher Characteristics
Studies have found that teacher background characteristics and work experience influence turnover (Boyd et al., 2011).For instance, young and old teachers most likely to quit their jobs than the middle-aged ones (Allensworth, Ponisciak, & Mazzeo, 2009;Guarino, Santibanez, & Daley, 2006;Johnson et al., 2005).Studies have also have linked teacher quality measures to turnover intentions.For instance, teachers with high qualifications which they measure by their own degree scores have more intentions to leave teaching (Boyd et al., 2005).However, teachers who focus more for being effective teachers by measuring the test score gains of the classroom students are less intended towards job turnover (Boyd, Grossman, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, in press;Boyd, Lankford, Loeb, Ronfeldt, & Wyckoff, 2005;Goldhaber, Gross, & Player, 2007;Hanushek, Kain, O'Brien, & Rivkin, 2005).On the other hand, many researchers found no significant relationship between teacher gender, race, or ethnicity to turnover (Allensworth et al., 2009;Guarino et al., 2006;Johnson et al., 2005).

Student Body Characteristics
Several researches have examined the relationship between student body characteristics and turnover intentions of teachers by utilizing large-scale, longitudinal data sets.These studies found that schools with more low-income background or with low-achievement potentials experience high teacher turnover (Boyd et al., 2005;Carroll, Reichardt, Guarino, & Mejia, 2000;Hanushek et al., 2004;Scafidi et al., 2005).For instance, according to a study conducted in NewYork there was 15% and 27% teacher's turnover in the low performing schools and high performing schools respectively (Boyd et al., 2005).Some other studies found that teachers are most likely to stay at schools with high achieving students (Scafidi et al., 2005;Hanushek et al.,2004).ISSN 2039-9340 (print) Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy Vol 6 No 1 January 2015 237

Teachers' Satisfaction With Their Salary
Teachers' salaries contribute in their retention.Researchers found the low salary as the main predictor of teacher attrition and turnover (Murnane & Olsen, 1989;Shen, 1997;Stinbrickner, 1998;Theobald, 1990).Good or increase in teacher's compensation may reduce turnover intentions of teachers, since many studies have found that low salaries were the main predictor of teacher turnover behaviors' (Liu, 2007;Loeb et al., 2005).Other studies have recommended high teacher salary as an effective strategy to reduce the turnover issues of teachers (Ingersoll and Smith, 2003;Kelly, 2004).Studies also found positive relationship between salary and job satisfaction of teachers.For instance, Perie et al. (1997) found a positive relationship between salary and teachers' job satisfaction.Similarly, Shann (1998) stated that low salaries cause teachers' job dissatisfaction.The study conducted by Liu and Meyer (2005) found that low teacher compensation was the major factor for teachers' dissatisfaction with their job.Unfortunately, very little research has focused on the relationship between teachers' satisfaction with their salary and administrative support (Boyd et al., 2011).Ingersoll and Smith (2003) found that more teachers leave their jobs due to working conditions ( that include lack of school administrative support, student discipline problems, poor student motivation and lack of decentralization in decision making process regarding classroom by the teachers) than that of other reasons such as salaries.Tickle, Chang, & Kim in (2011) also observed that working conditions have emerged as the main source of teacher job dissatisfaction and teacher turnover.Similarly Marvel et al. (2007) showed importance of working conditions in retention of school teachers.

Teaching Experience
Turnover issues of teachers are more commonly occur during the first few years of teaching (Ingersoll & Smitha, 2003).According to Liu (2007) first-year teachers are intended more towards leaving the teaching profession than experienced teachers, and mostly the beginning teachers leave teaching profession in their first five years of service.Luekens (2004) also indicated that teachers with one to three years of experience were more likely to leave the profession then more experienced teachers.Ingersoll and Smith (2003) found that two-thirds of former first-year teachers described that the teaching dissatisfaction was main reason for leaving the teaching profession.Stockard and Lehman (2004) indicated that social support and school management were major factors that significantly impact satisfaction and turnover issues of new teachers.In contrast, Perie et al. (1997) found that more experienced teachers reported lower levels of job satisfaction than the less experienced teachers, and that administrative support had influence on great teachers' job satisfaction than years of teaching experience.

The Principal Leadership
Many studies have revealed the impact of leadership behaviors on organizational outcomes (Bryman 1992;Leithwood 1994;Maehr and Midgley 1996;Ogawa and Bossert 1995;Oldham and Cummings1996;Spreitzer 1995).According to Pierce and Fenwick (2002), the contemporary principal must behave like a instructional leader to develop teachers.Buckingham and Coffman (1999) found that the quality of the relationship between staff and their supervisors or principals has significant impact on staff productivity and loyalty.The principal of school is the main leader who not only handles the schools' operations but is also responsible for the growth of teachers' career as well.According to studies a successful school principal is the leader of school and impacts a lot on teachers' intention to stay in teaching profession because he influences the behaviors of teachers towards the teaching (Minarik, Thornton, & Perreault, 2003).

School Contextual Factors and Teacher Turnover
According to many studies school contextual factors i.e teacher influence, safety, administrative support, student behavior, staff relations, facilities have a significant relationship with the turnover intentions of teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2003;Glaser, 2003;Hirsch & Emerick, 2007;Loeb et al., 2005).However, most of the previous studies relied on survey of teachers and were based on their perceptions and produce less accurate models (Boyd et al., 2011).ISSN 2039-9340 (print) Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy Vol 6 No 1 January 2015 238 2.9.1 Teacher Influence Teacher influence indicates teachers' autonomy in their classrooms and to their ability to influence on school practices and policies.Teachers with greater autonomy appear to be more satisfied from their work and have intentions to stay in teaching in long run as well (Johnson, 2006).According to Boyd et al. (2011) and Allensworth et al. (2009), teachers who are given an opportunity to contribute in decision making and planning process regarding school matters, show great interest in teaching and usually have more intentions to stay in school.

Administrative Support
According to Borman and Dowling (2008), administrative support is the school's effectiveness in assisting or supporting teachers regarding student discipline, curriculum, instructional methods and adjustment to the school environment.Leithwood and Jantzi (2006) stated that effective administrative support plays a vital role in school leadership practices and includes its four dimensions i.e, building vision of school, development of specific goals and priorities, offering individualized Support and development of a collaborative school culture.Loeb et al. (2005) revealed through survey data that lack of administrative support leads to turnover issues of teachers.In consistent with this agreement, Luekens (2004) also found that nearly 40% of teachers left teaching profession due to lack of administrative support.Moreover, Weiss (1999) highlighted administrative support as one of the most significant predictors of staying intentions of the teachers.Boyd, Grossman, Ing, Lankford, and Wyckoff (2009) investigated the impact of school contexts in public schools of New York and found administrative support as a critical factor for teacher's retention.Another qualitative study identified huge impact of administrative support on leaving intentions of teachers (Worthy, 2005).Liu and Meyer (2005) suggested school leadership as a significant contributor to teachers' job satisfaction and intention to stay in teaching.Similarly many other studies have found positive impact of administrative support on teachers' job satisfaction and their staying or leaving intentions in teaching (Ingersoll and Smith, 2003;Perie et al. 1997;Ladd, 2009).The study of Choi and Tang (2009) described the potential benefit of administrative support to reduce turnover intentions of teachers in an international context.Similarly, Shann (1998) concluded that the school administrators are responsible toward teacher job satisfaction.Administrative support refers to the involvement of principals and other school leaders in supporting teachers' tasks and helping them in improvement of their teaching.Administrative support plays an important role in providing professional development opportunities to school teachers (Hirsch & Emerick, 2007).Multiple studies have related administrative support to staying intentions of teachers (Ladd, 2009).Additionally, many studies have described the impact of leadership and school working conditions on teacher retention decisions.Waters, Marzano, and McNulty (2003) found through metaanalysis of 70 empirical studies that school leadership impacts on student achievement as well as on performance of school teachers .Similarly Seashore Louis, Anderson, and Wahlstrom (2004) and Hallinger (2005) conducted literature reviews regarding school leadership and concluded that leaderships have strong influence on student learning through their impact on school teachers and structures.Other study suggests that administrative support also impacts on the working conditions of school, such as the school safety and teacher influence (Johnson, 2006).Kelly (2004) mentioned the importance of schools' behavioral climate for teacher turnover intentions and stated that student behavior is one of the main factors that cause them to leave the teaching profession.Harrell and Jackson (2004) also found that student behavior was one of major factor for teacher's turnover.Many studies have revealed the high association of student behavior to teachers' job satisfaction (Ingersoll and Smith, 2003;Perie et al., 1997).Similarly, Liu and Meyer (2005) also found that student behavior is significant as teacher's income with their dissatisfaction level.Also Liu (2007) stated that student behavior and classroom management impact more on first-year teachers' intention to leave and job satisfaction.The student characteristics, such as student behavior also influence teacher retention.In many studies the teachers has cited lack of student discipline and motivation as main reasons of leaving school (Elam, 1989;MacDonald, 1999;Tye & O'Brien, 2002).Haberman and Rickards (1990) found through survey of teachers that they perceived student discipline as a main problem before starting and leaving.

Staff Relations
Staff relations refer to social land professional relationship of teachers with other teaching staff (Boyd et al., 2011).According to Allensworth et al. (2009), when the teachers feel a collective responsibility towards improvement of school and enhancing students learning, then they show more intention to stay in that school.Many other studies found that positive relationship of teachers with their colleagues also impact on their staying intentions in school (Darling-Hammond, 2003;DuFour & Eaker, 1998;Glaser, 2003).

Facilities
According to (Boyd et al., 2011), facilities refer to the physical work places of teachers and the available resources to them.According to many studies, facilities have been associated to teacher career paths (Corcoran, Walker, & White, 1988;Darling-Hammond, 2003;Steuteville-Brodinsky, Burbank, & Harrison, 1989).Many studies have found through teachers survey that physical features of schools are reported as main predictor of turnover of school teachers (Loeb et al., (2005); Buckley, Schneider,& Shang, 2005;Johnson, 1990).According to them teachers who perceive enough resources and facilities of schools, are more likely to stay in school for long run.

Safety
School safety means the school conditions that impact the psychological and physical well-being of teachers and students.Many factors indicate safety such as classroom misconduct and violence (Dinkes, Kemp, & Baum, 2009;Mayer & Furlong, 2010) or measurement of the perceptions of parents, students and teachers through surveys regarding safety in school climate (Anderson, 1982;Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, & Pickeral, 2009;Cornell & Loper, 1998).According to some studies, for instance (Duke, 2002), schools with less safety concerns are more able to provide a good working environment for teachers.On the other hand, the schools that struggle more to maintain a safe environment have usually difficulty in retaining teachers.(Boyd, Lankford, Loeb, Ronfeldt, & Wyckoff, 2010).

Theoretical Framework
According to Mary (2010), school teachers' performance is contingent upon intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, if there is management of good personnel, good infrastructure and culture climate, teaching materials, and good supervision.Authors have been described motivation as intrinsic and extrinsic in nature and both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation affects teachers performance if the intervening effects are available.The teacher performance can be measured by supervision of school activities, regular and early reporting at school, adequate teaching preparation, general punctuality among others and participating in extra-curricular activities.The teachers' satisfaction from job and performance leads to their retention in teaching field and schools as well.Many factors contribute positively to improve the retention of teachers.For example, factors such teacher's characteristics (Boyd et al., 2011), student body characteristics (Scafidi et al., 2005) and school contextual factors (Hirsch & Emerick, 2007), also impact on teachers retention.
The dependent variable is teacher's performance and retention which is variable of primary interest.We attempt to explain the variance in dependent variable by four independent variable of (1) Motivation, (2) teachers characteristics, (3) student body characteristics, (4) school contextual factors and moderating effect.The less motivated the teachers are; the greater is the probability of ineffective performance and retention since very little satisfaction among them.Teachers performance and retention may affect by motivational factor if there is no good personal management, good infrastructure and culture climate, inadequate teaching material, and poor supervision.We can also hypothesize that; there is a relationship between teachers and student characteristics and contextual school body.The Figure .3.0 shows the proposed relationship among these variables.