Why do some schools struggle to retain staff? Development and validation of the Teachers' Working Environment Scale (TWES)

Abstract

Many school systems face recurring shortages of qualified teachers. Research suggests that improving teachers’ working environment is one way of improving teachers’ job satisfaction and retention in the profession. However, working environment is inconsistently measured in the literature, hampering cumulation of knowledge. This article develops the first validated teacher‐report measure of working environment. Theory and empirics were synthesised to define relevant constructs, then focus groups, expert consultation and cognitive interviews with teachers were used to generate and refine items. The resulting questionnaire displayed the hypothesised factor structure in two samples of teachers. The scale also showed strong predictive validity and the results help resolve a puzzle around the importance of workload in the existing empirical literature. Through improved measurement, the scale can help identify steps by which school leaders can improve retention.

How do views of working conditions vary across school staff?

“…A wide array of research from the management literature has highlighted the importance of working conditions for staff, including measures of organisation-wide culture and climate (Ostroff et al, 2013). Related issues have also been explored in the education literature, with working conditions -and measures of the school working environment -found to predict a range of important outcomes, such as teacher retention (Ladd, 2011;Sims, 2021;Sims & Jerrim, 2020). Yet a notable feature of existing research is that measures of working conditions and the work environment within schools has almost entirely been based upon samples of teachers.…”

“…Second, some potentially interesting issues are not covered within the data available. For instance, Sims (2021) investigated the issue of "compliance", measured via questions such as "I am expected to do things solely for the purpose of generating evidence". It would be interesting for future research to explore how responses to such questions vary across staff occupying different roles, how this varies across schools, and the extent that it correlates with perceptions of workload.…”

Continuity and churn: understanding and responding to the impact of teacher turnover

“…Allen and Sims (2018) also emphasise the importance of 'informal CPD' (continuing professional Understanding and responding to the impact of teacher turnover 6 development), and the exchange of information that takes place during teachers' social interactions, such as end-of-the-week social events at the pub. There is a risk that turnover might disrupt these social rituals, but it is worth noting that there is no consensus in the literature regarding the relationship between turnover and collaboration or collegiality (Sims, 2021).…”

“…Studies to date have explored how to stem leaks in the teacher supply pipeline (Allen and Sims, 2018;Barmby, 2006;Chiong et al, 2017;Menzies et al, 2015;Sims, 2020Sims, , 2021Small et al, 2018), but there are fewer studies of how turnover affects students, and what to do about this. As discussed in greater detail below, studies tend to fall into two groups: those that emphasise the negative effects of turnover (Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond, 2017;Darling-Hammond and Sykes, 2003;Gibbons et al, 2018;Ronfeldt et al, 2013), and those that highlight the potential benefits of the 'right sort' of turnover (Adnot et al, 2017;Hanushek and Rivkin, 2010).…”

“…Turnover and churn have been defined in the literature in numerous ways. Sims (2021) distinguishes between 'attrition', where teachers leave the profession, and 'turnover', where teachers move from one school to another. Movement between schools is also referred to as 'churn' (Worth and De Lazzari, 2017).…”