Educational Psychology

An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology

ISSN: 0144-3410 (Print) 1469-5820 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cedp20

Relating early childhood teachers’ working

conditions and well-being to their turnover
intentions

Ashley A. Grant, Lieny Jeon & Cynthia K. Buettner

To cite this article: Ashley A. Grant, Lieny Jeon & Cynthia K. Buettner (2019): Relating early
childhood teachers’ working conditions and well-being to their turnover intentions, Educational
Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/01443410.2018.1543856

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2018.1543856

Published online: 11 Jan 2019.

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EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2018.1543856

Relating early childhood teachers’ working conditions

and well-being to their turnover intentions
Ashley A. Granta , Lieny Jeona and Cynthia K. Buettnerb
a
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; bThe Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

High turnover rates of early care and education teachers reduce Received 24 October 2017
the quality of education; unsatisfied teachers, suffering from stress Revised 6 August 2018
or emotional exhaustion, are less equipped to promote children’s Accepted 28 October 2018
development and more likely to leave the classroom. We used
KEYWORDS
data from a national survey of US early childhood educators
Early care and education;
(n ¼ 1129) to examine associations between teachers’ working teacher turnover; teacher
conditions, well-being, and motivation with professional commit- professional commitment;
ment and turnover intentions to move, leave, or remain. Multiple teacher psychological
regression analyses revealed that more intrinsically motivated well-being;
teachers were more likely to report intentions to move over leave, working conditions
emotionally exhausted teachers were more likely to report inten-
tions to leave, and lower teacher-reported working conditions
predicted intentions to move or leave the field over staying. The
results suggest that teachers’ well-being and perceived working
conditions relate with their intentions to remain at their job or
within the field and to their commitment to the profession.

Introduction
Rising numbers of children under 2 years old enroll in early care and education (ECE)
programs (over 12 million in 2013, US Census Bureau, 2013) and more evidence sup-
ports the importance of children’s early development in long-term outcomes (e.g.
Campbell, Ramey, Pungello, Sparling, & Miller-Johnson, 2002; Heckman, Pinto, &
Savelyev, 2013). Growing attention to the quality of care provided in these environ-
ments (particularly variability in quality, Jeon & Buettner, 2015; Phillips, Mekos, Scarr,
McCartney, & Abbott–Shim, 2001), has spurred researchers and policy-makers to inves-
tigate the drivers behind the quality of care provided by ECE programs (Irwin, Madura,
Bamat, & McDermott, 2016). Improving the quality of child-care, which costs the aver-
age American parent between $4,800 and $17,304 per year for a 4-year old at a child-
care center (comparable to rent prices), is a worthy investment (Child Care Aware,
2014). Teacher turnover, approximately 30% annually among ECE providers (NAEYC,
2004), can harm the quality of education and care children receive, undermining safe
attachments and organizational stability (Hamre & Pianta, 2005; Phillips et al., 2001;
Whitebook, Sakai, & Howes, 2004).

CONTACT Ashley A. Grant ashley.a.grant@jhu.edu Johns Hopkins School of Education, 2800 N. Charles St.,
Baltimore, MD, 21211 USA
ß 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 A. A. GRANT ET AL.

To understand how to reduce teacher turnover, researchers have investigated mul-

tiple predictors of teachers’ decisions to leave: individual teachers’ attributes, including
high levels of stress and poor well-being, and job-related characteristics, including low
pay, poor working conditions, poor relationships with children, families, or co-workers,
and workplace instability (Hall-Kenyon, Bullough, MacKay, & Marshall, 2014; Wells,
2015; Whitebook & Sakai, 2004). Teachers who find their current workplace unfulfilling
due to negative emotional experiences or low rewards, become dissatisfied and seek a
better alternative (Totenhagen et al., 2016). Additionally, teachers unsatisfied with their
working conditions, suffering from stress or emotional exhaustion, or experiencing dif-
ficulties with their emotional regulation or coping skills are less equipped to promote
children’s development (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009), have more conflict with children
(Whitaker, Dearth-Wesley, & Gooze, 2015), and overall are less able to create quality
child care environments for children (Buettner, Jeon, Hur, & Garcia, 2016).
Although there has been investigation of early childhood educators’ commitment,
no studies have simultaneously examined associations between teachers’ working con-
ditions, well-being, and turnover intentions. Additionally, studies of early childhood
educator turnover have not yet distinguished between teachers seeking other ECE
placements (teacher mobility) and leaving the field entirely (teacher attrition). This
study seeks to examine associations between several aspects of ECE teachers, their
jobs, and indicators of their potential turnover. We specifically examined working con-
ditions, teachers’ well-being, and their career motivations as predictors of teachers’
commitment and turnover intentions.

Teachers’ intentions to leave and professional commitment

Teachers’ commitment to the organization and profession has often been studied in
conjunction with turnover or as a proxy, continuous outcome for turnover and has
been shown to relate to teachers’ turnover intentions and satisfaction (Ladd, 2011).
Teacher commitment represents the relationship between teachers and their organiza-
tion and the profession: their belief in their goals and effectiveness, their readiness to
expend energy on their behalf, and their desire to continue (Somech & Bogler, 2002).
Previous studies investigating K–12 teachers have differentiated the measurement of
commitment between commitment to the teaching profession (professional commit-
ment), current workplace (organizational commitment), and specific work goals like
student learning (Kushman, 1992; Whipp & Geronime, 2015).
Differentiating between teachers seeking to move within the industry (not commit-
ted to their organization) and those seeking to leave the industry (not committed to
the profession), can help us understand and target the specific causes of teachers’
decisions to leave their center. For instance, teachers who intend to move to a differ-
ent program may be seeking a place with more support and better conditions than
their current work place. In contrast, teachers who intend to leave the ECE field
entirely may generalize their current dissatisfaction to the whole ECE field. Within
research on K-12 teachers, movers and leavers differ based on school features (e.g.
age level and urbanicity) and workplace features (e.g. collaboration) – for example,
teachers at schools with greater time for peer collaboration were less likely to leave
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 3

the profession, but not less likely to move to another school (Smith & Ingersoll, 2004).
The dynamic relationship between work experiences and teachers’ considerations of
moving jobs or leaving the field has yet to be examined within the ECE field.
In the current study, we explored movers and leavers separately to understand how
teachers’ personal attributes and working conditions are associated with teachers’ dif-
ferent intentions to leave. In addition, we examined teachers’ professional commit-
ment to see whether teachers’ intentions to leave or move were related to their
commitment, and if both constructs had similar relationships with teacher’s well-being,
motivation, and working conditions.

Working conditions and turnover indicators

Research has shown that teachers, when deciding whether to continue in their current
job or profession, evaluate their current working conditions, which are considered as
program-level professional resources (e.g. Ingersoll, 2001; Ladd, 2011; Shen et al.,
2012). The organizational theory of turnover explains how teachers’ working condi-
tions affect their beliefs about their job and their career, which in turn affects their
intentions to leave, particularly spurring them to move to another job (Ingersoll,
2001). From an organizational perspective, administrators are most interested in main-
taining organizational stability, so they want to understand what aspects of their
organization retain or drive teachers away (Whitebook & Sakai, 2004).
Within the ECE field, studies have examined the influence of teacher perceptions of
their working conditions on their decision to leave their job (Jorde-Bloom, 1996). For
example, Wells (2015) demonstrated how an accumulation of risk factors related to
Head Start teachers’ jobs (e.g., work environment perception, satisfaction in their job,
and relationship with their director) was associated with an increased probability of quit-
ting within the first 6 months of hiring. Job and workplace professional resources (e.g.,
co-worker relations, the actual work, and pay and promotion opportunities), compared
to individual characteristics such as gender or experience, also had a stronger tie to ECE
teachers’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Jorde-Bloom, 1988).
Among ECE work conditions, poor pay, benefits, and promotion opportunities are
often cited as sources of frustration and have been shown to predict higher turnover
(e.g. Whitebook et al., 2004). Organizational dynamics, such as relationships with
colleagues and administrators, have also been shown to affect teachers’ commitment
and intentions to leave (Jorde-Bloom, 1996; Zinsser, Christensen, & Torres, 2016).
Additionally, measures of overall workplace climate and work features have been
found to relate to teachers’ commitment and turnover (Wells, 2015), although other
studies with smaller samples have found no relationship between job satisfaction and
turnover (Manlove & Guzell, 1997), or between teachers’ ratings of their work environ-
ment and intentions to leave (Garcia, 2011). Further investigation is needed to deter-
mine whether and how teachers’ perceptions of their work conditions impact their
intentions to leave and their professional commitment (Totenhagen et al., 2016). In
this study, we hypothesized that teacher-perceived workplace conditions (including
high job demands, constant interpersonal exchanges with children and co-workers,
4 A. A. GRANT ET AL.

and low wages) would be associated with an experience of negative emotions leading
teachers to desire an exit from their work situation.

Psychological functioning and turnover indicators

Many studies examining teacher turnover and working conditions exclude an examin-
ation of teachers’ emotional and psychological experience, which is closely related to
their professional engagement (Buettner et al., 2016). Teachers’ emotional and psycho-
logical functioning can be theoretically divided into: their current state of well-being,
and the coping strategies they use to handle their current situation (Jennings &
Greenberg, 2009). In this study, we examined both psychological well-being, measured
by stress and emotional exhaustion, and coping, measured by emotional regulation
strategies (suppression and reappraisal) and problem-focused coping strategies.
Teachers experience lower well-being and higher stress than most other occupations
(e.g. Whitaker et al., 2015; Kyriacou, 2001). Teachers experience stress due to conflict or
high demands from their students, colleagues, workload, environment, or personal life
(Lambert et al., 2015; Montgomery & Rupp, 2005). Continuous and excessive stress can
lead to emotional exhaustion, an element of burnout, which is expressed through feel-
ings of tiredness, particularly in regards to one’s emotions (Chang, 2013; Lazarus &
Folkman, 1987). Teacher well-being and social and emotional competence are important
for improving overall classroom climate and students’ developmental outcomes (e.g.
Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Jeon, Buettner, & Snyder, 2014). Previous research has also
shown higher levels of stress (Kim & Kim, 2010) and higher levels of emotional exhaus-
tion (Manlove & Guzell, 1997) increase teachers’ intentions to leave their job and
decrease their professional engagement (Montgomery & Rupp, 2005).
To help manage the higher psychological load of ECE work, teachers often employ
emotional regulation and coping strategies. Emotional regulation measures how peo-
ple respond to events that stir their emotions (Gross, 1998). Gross and John (2003)
illustrated how individuals experience and translate an event through two main proc-
esses: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. A person using reappraisal re-
evaluates the circumstances of a situation and alters their thinking (Lazarus &
Folkman, 1987), while someone using suppression conceals their response to a situ-
ation, altering their outer behavior but not their inner thinking. Although the link
between emotional regulation and teacher turnover is understudied, Tsouloupas,
Carson, Matthews, Grawitch, and Barber (2010) found less reappraisal and greater sup-
pression were related with increased turnover. Teachers reappraising difficult situations
are less likely to experience stress and more likely to persist, while suppression strat-
egies could lead teachers to bottle up their emotions until they cannot handle them
any longer and seek an exit from the setting, possibly from the profession entirely
(Co^t
e & Morgan, 2002).
Emotional regulation can also be considered in the context of teachers’ other cop-
ing skills which together help teachers handle excessive demands on the job (Chang,
2013; Lazarus & Folkman, 1987). For instance, when continuously encountering child-
ren’s challenging behavior, teachers equipped with better coping strategies may cre-
ate a plan to prevent future misbehavior or may choose to remember the majority of
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 5

their students cooperating, and persist in their jobs. Alternatively, continual stress
could lead to exhaustion and encourage teachers to seek relief from the stress
by leaving.
Researchers have noted a lack of studies simultaneously investigating ECE teacher
well-being and their working conditions (Hall-Kenyon et al., 2014) and how these fac-
tors relate to teacher turnover (Wells, 2015). This study, therefore, seeks to examine
how the various aspects of teachers’ well-being – stress, emotional exhaustion, coping,
and emotional regulation – relate with their commitment and career intentions after
adjusting for working conditions and other covariates.

Motivation and turnover indicators

According to the motivational theory of Watt and Richardson (2008), teachers’ motiv-
ation for choosing their career influences their behavior in the profession and deci-
sions about remaining in the profession. Teachers with intrinsic motivation tend to
choose teaching as a profession due to the value inherent in the job, such as seeing
children grow and learn; extrinsic motivation, meanwhile, is related to rewards such as
pay or an easy schedule (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 2001). Although research into teacher
motivation is limited, teachers typically display more intrinsic motivation towards their
jobs (seeking “psychic rewards”, Lortie, 1975), which has been linked with better devel-
opment and performance among their students (Deci et al., 2001).
Watt and Richardson (2008) found K-12 teachers with more intrinsic motivation for
entering the profession were more engaged in their job and professional development
and were more likely to remain at their job and in the profession than teachers with
more extrinsic motivation. Because teaching is a profession with fewer extrinsic
rewards and greater demands, Watt and Richardson (2008) hypothesized teachers who
are more extrinsically motivated may seek to leave the field entirely. More intrinsically
motivated teachers, however, when faced with high demands, may be more likely to
persist in the profession, instead seeking another workplace. Within the ECE workforce,
there has not yet been any study of a link between teachers’ motivations to become
teachers and their subsequent career decisions.
Although it is difficult to change teachers’ motivation, understanding the kinds of
rewards teachers seek (whether more intrinsic or extrinsic), can provide a more holistic
picture of what prompts teachers to leave the classroom. In turn, this knowledge can
enlighten administrators and policy-makers on how to work effectively with teachers,
encouraging them to stay, remain committed to their workplace, and improve
their practice.

Hypotheses
This study explores whether teacher perceived working conditions, psychological well-
being (stress, emotional exhaustion, emotion regulation, and coping), and career
motivation are associated with their commitment and intentions about their job and
the ECE field to better understand teachers’ turnover decisions. This study adds to the
current literature about ECE teacher turnover by examining multiple career intention
6 A. A. GRANT ET AL.

outcomes. We examined differences among teachers who intend to leave the profes-
sion, move within the field, and stay in the current job. We also investigated teachers’
professional commitment as an outcome to fully capture teachers’ turnover intentions.
Turnover intention outcomes, such as career intention (i.e., leave, move, or stay) and
professional commitment, have been strongly tied to observed turnover (Ladd, 2011)
and potentially signal teachers’ satisfaction, commitment, and engagement with their
job (Hughes, 2001). Also, because teachers’ intentions do not rely on job seeking con-
straints, they better represent their views about their current workplace.
First we hypothesize teachers who perceive their working conditions more posi-
tively, would report greater psychological wellbeing (i.e., lower levels of stress, emo-
tional exhaustion, and suppression emotion regulation and higher levels of reappraisal
emotion regulation and coping strategies). Additionally, teachers with more intrinsic
career motivation would be less likely to report intentions to leave their current job
after adjusting for other personal and job characteristics. Second, comparing movers
and leavers, we predict teachers who perceive their working conditions more posi-
tively would report greater psychological wellbeing; teachers with more intrinsic career
motivation would be more likely to report intentions to move rather than leave after
adjusting for the covariates. Finally, we hypothesize teachers who perceive their work-
ing conditions more positively, report greater psychological wellbeing, and teachers
who have more intrinsic career motivation would report a higher overall professional
commitment after adjusting for the covariates.

Methods
Participants
We analyzed data collected in 2014 by the Survey of Early Childhood Educators: US
project (full details in Buettner et al., 2016). The random sample of ECE programs
drew from a US population including all 50 states and D.C. The Market Data Retrieval
(MDR) service, an annually updated mailing list, was used to identify the national
population of ECE programs and provide a sample of 7500 programs stratified accord-
ing to geographic type (nine US Census Bureau regions) and program type (child-care
and public pre-K program). Directors at each program who received a survey packet
were instructed to randomly distribute a teacher questionnaire to one random pre-
school teacher whose birthday is closest to the day they receive the packet.
Completed surveys were received from 1129 teachers, each from a different center,
representing a 16% response rate. There was no statistically significant difference in
any strata between the proportion of packets mailed and those received by the
research team.

Materials (measures)
Turnover indicators
To capture teachers’ turnover intentions regarding their job and career, we asked what
teachers would most likely do if there was an option to leave their program. Using
their response to this one item, teachers were coded as follows: would not choose to
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 7

leave as stayers, wanted to stay in the field but in a different setting or related field as
movers, and pursuing a completely different field, stopping work, or retiring were
coded as leavers. Teachers’ professional commitment was measured by 4 items focusing
on their commitment to their ECE career and current program. These items were
adapted from the Schools and Staffing Survey (Tourkin et al., 2007) and ask teachers
to rate their commitment, including their intention to stay in their current career,
work place and position (e.g. “would you choose to become an early-childhood educa-
tor if you could choose again”). Teachers responded on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly
disagree–5 = strongly agree).

Working conditions
Teacher’ answered five items about their perceptions of their working conditions: rela-
tionships with co-workers and supervisor, the work itself, and the pay and promotion
opportunities. Answers were on a five-point scale (1 = not at all like my ideal, 5 = is
my ideal). This is the short form of the Work Attitudes Questionnaire (Baker,
Kupersmidt, Voegler-Lee, Arnold, & Willoughby, 2010), adapted from Jorde-Bloom,
Sheerer, and Britz (1991) and Cronbach’s a ¼ .75.

Psychological functioning: well-being

Teachers’ psychological well-being was measured by general stress and job-related
emotional exhaustion. Teachers’ general stress was measured by teachers’ responses
on 10 items from the short-form of the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck, &
Mermelstein, 1983). It asks the degree of perceived stress in the past month using a
five-point scale (0 = never, 4 = very often). Internal reliability was .84 in the current
sample and the exploratory factor analysis supported a single factor solution. We also
asked two questions to measure teachers’ job-related emotional exhaustion using a
seven-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). Cronbach’s a ¼.86 in the
current sample.

Psychological functioning: coping

Teachers’ ability to cope with their psychological load was measured by emotional
regulation styles and coping strategies. Emotional regulation was measured using the
Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross, 1998) which consists of 10 items divided
among two subscales, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, on a seven-
point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). The reappraisal subscale (e.g. “I
control my emotions by changing the way I think about the situation I’m in.”) had an
internal reliability of .83 in the current sample. The suppression subscale (e.g. “I control
my emotions by not expressing them.”) had an internal reliability of .72 in the current
sample. Teachers’ coping strategies was measured by three subscales, planning, active
coping, and use of instrumental support, from the brief COPE (Carver, 1997). Teachers
answered six items on a four-point scale (1 = I didn’t do this at all, 4 = I did this a lot)
(Cronbach’s a ¼.78).
8 A. A. GRANT ET AL.

Motivation
To measure teachers’ motivations for their job, we asked why they chose to work in
the early childhood education field. Teachers were given 10 options and could choose
multiple options. The 10 possible answers were coded according to career motivation
theory (Houkes, Janssen, de Jonge, & Nijhuis, 2001; Kuvaas et al., 2017; Watt &
Richardson, 2008) as either intrinsically or extrinsically motivated: whether they were
tied to teacher’s internal satisfaction and fulfillment (e.g. “supporting children’s devel-
opment”) or more to their external needs (e.g. “job security”). We created separate
indices for these two types of motivation by adding each teacher’s intrinsic and extrin-
sic choices separately and then dividing each score by the number of possible items,
so each teacher received an intrinsic and extrinsic score ranging 0-1.

Covariates
To adjust for other influences on our results, we included a set of covariates in the
model representing teachers’ demographics and job characteristics. Teachers’ demo-
graphics included their age (in years), sex (dummy coded, 1 = female), marital status
(dummy coded, 1 = single), race and ethnicity (dummy coded, 0 = White, non-Hispanic,
and 1 = minority status race/ethnicity), educational attainment (dummy coded, 0=‘less
than an associate degree’, 1=‘having an associate degree,’ and 2=‘having a bachelor’s
degree’), and licensure (dummy coded 1 = having a state or young children teaching
license and 0 = having neither). Teachers’ job characteristics were measured by their salary
using 11 categories (1=$5000 or less, 11=$75,001 or more), teacher type (dummy coded,
0 = assistant, 1 = lead), teaching experience in the early childhood education field
(years), teaching experience at their current center (in years), and program type, includ-
ing accreditation, non-profit status, and Head Start status (three variables dummy coded
as 1= yes). We additionally adjusted for child behaviors which were measured by teach-
ers’ report of children’s abilities and behaviors in the classroom on eight items on a 5-
point scale from 0 = none to 4 = more than 1=2 of the class (Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, &
Cox, 2000). We used the mean of the eight items (Cronbach’s a = .89).

Statistical analyses
Of the variables included for analysis, 28% of cases were missing at least one value,
but we detected no patterns of missingness. The missing data was handled by
Multiple Imputation (MI) estimation to minimize estimation uncertainty and preserve
the integrity of the statistical inferences (Schafer, 1999). A total of 10 imputations
were performed and analyzed via Bayesian estimation (Rubin, 1987). Final, adjusted
estimates resembled original values and resulted in a final sample of 1065 teachers
representing cases with complete data.
In preliminary data analyses, we examined the descriptive statistics and bivariate
correlations between key predictors and the turnover outcomes. To predict the cat-
egorical outcome career intentions (stay, move within the field, or leave the field), we
conducted a multinomial logistic regression analysis using STATA 14.0. We additionally
examined the results using a binary logistic regression model with the typical binomial
turnover intention outcome (stay in current job or leave) and an OLS regression to
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 9

predict the continuous outcome professional commitment. We estimated all regression

models using robust standard errors to account for heteroscedasticity and our com-
plex sampling design. We also examined potential interactions between our main pre-
dictors, but we did not find any interactions that were statistically significant or which
significantly improved our model. We examined further evidence for the multinomial
regression’s multiple outcomes in visual format, by graphing each outcome’s predicted
probabilities across the range for each key predictor.

Results
Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations
Descriptive statistics of the sample are shown in Table 1. Teachers’ demographics and
job characteristics were generally consistent with the findings from the National Survey
of Early Care and Education (NSECE, 2013), except our sample had higher average ECE
experience (15 instead of 10 years) and higher education (80% college-educated, includ-
ing Associates and Bachelors, instead of 53%). A quarter of teachers were single and
64% were licensed. Nearly all teachers were female (97.2%), lead teachers (93.0%), and
identified as White, non-Hispanic (84.9%). The average teacher had over 15 years of
experience, but the median teacher had only been working for 8 years as an ECE
teacher. Of the programs where teachers worked, a third (31%) were non-profit and
10.2% were Head Start centers. Within our sample of teachers, 41% intended to stay in
the current job, 31% to move to another ECE job, and 27% to leave the field.
Table 2 provides bivariate correlations between key predictors (working conditions,
stress, emotional exhaustion, emotional regulation, coping, and motivation) and the out-
comes (turnover intention types and commitment). All predictor variables (besides reappraisal
emotional regulation) were statistically significantly correlated with the outcomes.

Table 1. Sample descriptive statistics.

Variables n Mean SD
Teacher – Individual Characteristics
Age (years) 1098 44.67 12.38
Teacher –Job-related Characteristics
Salary (thousand $) 1102 27.51 12.7
ECE Experience (years) 1120 15.59 9.63
Experience at current center (years) 1118 10.29 8.43
Child Behavior ( 0–4) 1122 1.35 0.72
Key Variables (range in parentheses)
Working Conditions (0–5) 1120 3.98 .69
Stress (0–40) 1129 11.97 5.66
Emotional Exhaustion (1–7) 1119 3.53 1.68
Emotional Regulation – Reappraisal (1–7) 1116 5.46 .97
Suppression (1–7) 1114 476 1.17
Coping (1–4) 1114 3.45 .49
Motivation: Intrinsic (0–1) 1129 0.76 .25
Extrinsic (0–1) 1129 .16 .27
Outcome: Professional Commitment 1129 4.6 .69
Note. Means are based on the full imputed data set with 1065 observations. The n shows how many
cases were observed for each variable in dataset before imputation. SD: Standard Deviation; ECE:
Early childhood education; figures with an asterisk are the median figure (of a categorical variable).
10 A. A. GRANT ET AL.

Table 2. Bivariate correlations between key variables.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1. Working Conditions 1
2. Stress .25 1
3. Emotional Exhaustion .25 .38 1
4. ER: Reappraisal .17 .16 .08 1
5. ER: Suppression .02 .10 .09 .09 1
6. Coping .18 .13 .04 .25 .17 1
7. Intrinsic Motivation .12 .07 .07 .10 .09 .16 1
8. Extrinsic Motivation .15 .01 .01 .00 .00 .09 .13 1
9. Professional Commitment .37 .25 .22 .05 .12 .09 .20 .07
10. Intentions: Stay .27 .19 .18 .01 .10 .06 .13 .04 .34 1
11. Intentions: Move .18 .10 .06 .02 .06 .04 .06 .04 .12 .51 1
12. Intentions: Leave .11 .10 .14 .01 .05 .11 .18 .04 .26 .47 .38 1
Note. ER: emotional regulation. p < .05; p < .01.

Table 3. Results from multiple logistic, binomial logistic, and OLS regression analyses – compari-
son among outcomes.
Leave Leave Move/Leave Professional
Move vs. Stay vs. Stay vs. Move vs. Stay Commitment
Variables RRR RRR RRR OR ß
Predictors
Working conditions 0.42 (0.06) 0.47 (0.07) 1.14 (0.17) 0.44 (0.05) 0.28 (0.04)
Stress 1.04 (0.02) 1.05 (0.02) 1.01 (0.02) 1.04 (0.02) 0.01 (0.00)
Emotional Exhaustion 1.04 (0.06) 1.24 (0.07) 1.19 (0.07) 1.13 (0.05) 0.04 (0.01)
Emotional Regulation Reappraisal 1.17 (0.11)þ 1.20 (0.11) 1.02 (0.10) 1.18 (0.09) 0.02 (0.02)
Suppression 0.84 (0.06) 0.94 (0.07) 1.12 (0.09) 0.88 (0.06) 0.04 (0.02)
Coping 1.34 (0.24) 0.82 (0.15) 0.62 (0.12) 1.06 (0.17) 0.01 (0.05)
Motivation: Intrinsic .63 (0.27) 0.10 (0.05) 0.17 (0.07) 0.28 (0.10) 0.33 (0.09)
Extrinsic .66 (0.33) 3.11 (1.59) 4.65 (2.63) 1.25 (.51) 0.12 (.10)
Personal Demographics
Age 0.97 (0.01) 1.03 (0.01) 1.06 (0.01) 1.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.00)
Gender (female ¼ 1) 1.03 (0.50) 1.12 (0.61) 1.09 (0.58) 1.06 (0.46) 0.39 (0.14)
Marital Status (single ¼ 1) 1.61 (0.31) 1.12 (0.25) 0.70 (0.16)þ 1.44 (0.25) 0.05 (0.05)
Race (minority ¼ 1, white ¼ 0) 1.19 (0.27) 0.69 (0.19) 0.58 (0.17) .96 (0.20) 0.03 (0.06)
Associate degree 0.83 (0.26) 0.88 (0.26) 1.07 (0.37) 0.81 (0.20) 0.03 (0.07)
Bachelor’s degree 1.28 (0.34) 1.02 (0.24) 0.79 (0.22) 1.10 (0.23) 0.13 (0.05)
License or Certificate 1.19 (0.24) .83 (0.16) .70 (0.15)þ .99 (.16) 0.04 (.05)
Job-related Characteristics
Salary 0.97 (0.04) 0.99 (0.04) 1.02 (0.05) 0.98 (0.03) 0.04 (0.01)
Lead teacher status 1.70 (0.59) 1.03 (0.33) 0.61 (0.22) 1.33 (0.37) 0.07 (0.07)
Experience in ECE 1.02 (0.01) 0.99 (0.01) 0.97 (0.02)þ 1.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.00)
Experience at current center 0.98 (0.01) 1.01 (0.01) 1.03 (0.02) 1.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.00)
Center Accredited 1.09 (0.19) 0.93 (0.19) 0.85 (0.19) 1.01 (0.17) 0.08 (0.04)þ
Public Center 1.07 (0.20) 0.88 (0.18) 0.82 (0.18) .99 (0.16) 0.06 (0.04)
Head Start Center 2.58 (0.68) 0.73 (0.25) 0.28 (0.09) 1.62 (0.41) 0.02 (0.07)
Child behavior 0.95 (0.12) 0.75 (0.10) 0.79 (0.11)þ 0.86 (0.09) 0.03 (0.03)
n 1065 1065 1065 1065 1065
Note. Standard errors are presented in parentheses to the right of each estimate. RRR: relative risk ratio; OR: odds
ratio, ECE: Early Childhood Education, p < .01, p  .05, þp < .10.

Multivariate analysis: primary analysis

The first four columns in Table 3 compare the various outcomes: moving compared to
staying, leaving compared to staying, leaving compared to moving, and leaving or
moving compared to staying. Confirming the IIA test results, the multiple outcomes in
columns one through three display unique patterns that disappear when using a
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 11

binomial outcome (shown in the fourth column). Finally, the fifth column in Table 3
describes the results from the OLS regression analysis examining the associations
between key predictors and teachers’ professional commitment after adjusting
for covariates.
Table 3 presents the results of the multinomial regression in terms of relative risk
ratio (RRR). The relative risk ratio demonstrates the probability of reporting one pos-
sible outcome over another, calculated for each predictor variable, simultaneously
incorporating the likelihood of all three outcomes: staying, moving, and leaving. For
example, the first entry in Table 3 (RRR = .42) compares the probability a teacher will
move, over the probability a teacher will stay with a one unit increase in their per-
ceived working conditions. This relative risk ratio, lower than one, indicates a higher
risk of the second outcome, compared to the first. Specifically, teachers with a one
unit increase in their perceived working conditions have 0.42 times the risk of moving
versus staying – they are more likely to stay than move, compared to a teacher with a
one unit lower perceived working conditions, after adjusting for all other key predic-
tors and covariates.
A relative risk ratio equal to one signifies an equal risk or likelihood that a teacher
with those characteristics will have either outcome and a ratio greater than one indi-
cates teachers have a higher risk of the first outcome, when compared to the second.
Teachers with better perceptions of working conditions showed a lower likelihood
of intending to move or leave over staying (RRR = 0.42 and 0.47 respectively, p < .01),
with all adjustment variables constant. Of the well-being independent variables,
greater stress and emotional exhaustion predicted a greater likelihood of leaving over
staying (RRR = 1.05 and 1.24, p < .01). More reappraisal emotional regulation pre-
dicted greater risk of moving or leaving over staying, at a similar risk level (RRR = 1.17
and 1.20). In contrast, more suppressive emotional regulation predicted a lower likeli-
hood of moving over staying (RRR = 0.84, p < .05) but did not have a statistically sig-
nificant relationship with the likelihood of leaving over staying. Finally, motivation was
not associated with the risk of moving over staying. However, teachers reporting more
intrinsic motivation were much less likely to intend to leave the field compared with
staying at their job (RRR = .10, p < .01) and teachers reporting more extrinsic motiv-
ation were over three time more likely to report intentions to leave over staying (RRR
= 3.11, p < .05).
Looking at the comparison of leaving and moving (column three, Table 3), poor
working conditions did not relate with teachers’ likelihood to prefer moving over leav-
ing – the relative risk ratio of 1.14 predicted a greater likelihood of leaving over mov-
ing, but this was not statistically significant (p > .1). Of the psychological functioning
independent variables, only emotional exhaustion was associated with a greater likeli-
hood of leaving over moving, with an increased risk of leaving relative to moving (RRR
= 1.10, p < .01). Increased coping predicted a .62 greater risk of moving over leaving
(p < .05). Additionally, teachers with more intrinsic motivation were much less likely
to intend to leave versus move within the profession (RRR = 0.17, p < .01) and teach-
ers with more extrinsic motivation were more than four times more likely to leave
compared to move (RRR = 4.65, p < .01).
12 A. A. GRANT ET AL.

Results from the logistic regression (column four, Table 3) predicting intentions to
leave or move compared to stay, show how the relative risk figures for movers and
leavers (in columns one and two) get averaged together when these categories are
combined. For example, teachers with greater suppressive emotional regulation,
reported greater intentions to move over stay (RRR = .84, p < .05), but who were not
statistically significantly more likely to report leaving over staying (RRR = .94, p>.10),
appear to have a greater likelihood of intending to move or leave over stay (RRR =
.88, p < .05).
Column five in Table 3 illustrates the similar patterns of association between the
predictors and teachers’ professional commitment. Better perceived working condi-
tions associated with teachers’ greater commitment (ß = 0.28, p < .01) and more
intrinsic motivation was also associated with greater commitment (ß = 0.33, p < .01).
In contrast, coefficients on all of the psychological functioning variables were com-
paratively small; small but statistically significant relationships existed between greater
stress and emotional exhaustion and lower commitment (ß = 0.01 and ß = 0.04, p
< .01), and suppressive emotional regulation related with increased commitment (ß =
0.04, p < .01).
Finally, Figure 1 illustrates the difference between teachers’ turnover intentions for
the various predictors, providing visual evidence to support the numerical data in
Table 3 (columns one through three). Generally, these graphs show how the likeli-
hoods for teachers’ intentions of staying, moving, or leaving (represented by the three
lines in each graph) shift at different levels of the predictors, and how these relation-
ships function differently for each predictor. For example, looking at the graphs for
motivation, the lines for leaving intentions (the line with squares) are exactly opposite.
Teachers reporting greater intrinsic motivation report less intentions to leave and in
contrast, teachers reporting more extrinsic motivation report greater intentions to
leave. The almost flat lines in these graphs (moving intentions in intrinsic motivation
and staying intentions in extrinsic motivation) implies that these motivational factors
do not have a strong influence on these intention types. As teachers pass the thresh-
old of .6 intrinsic motivation, they also report a greater likelihood of moving or staying
rather than leaving the profession.

Discussion
The results suggest teachers’ working conditions, psychological functioning, and intrin-
sic motivation have a statistically and substantively significant relationship with their
intentions to remain at their job or in the ECE field after adjusting for their personal
demographics and job characteristics. Predicting these intentions is important because
of turnover’s high cost in both dollars and organizational functioning. While parents
provide many of these dollars themselves, a growing public sector of ECE including
Head Start centers and universal public pre-kindergarten (e.g., Oklahoma and Georgia),
calls for greater public interest in the workings of ECE environments (Bassok,
Fitzpatrick, & Loeb, 2014).
As hypothesized, teachers’ perceiving better working conditions showed a
decreased likelihood of intending to move or leave compared to staying at their job
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 13

Figure 1. Predicted probabilities of each turnover intention outcome (stay, move, and leave) at
different levels of perceived working conditions, stress, exhaustion, coping, reappraisal and suppres-
sion emotional regulation, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
14 A. A. GRANT ET AL.

and a greater sense of professional commitment. Our findings were consistent with
previous studies pointing to the relationship between teachers’ positive perceptions of
their working conditions and their intentions to leave (e.g. Wells, 2015). Whitebook
and Sakai (2004) found teachers who have a negative experience with their working
environment tend to seek an alternative situation, at another child care center or in a
different career field, where they can experience a more positive environment.
Regarding teachers’ psychological load, higher reports of stress and emotional
exhaustion related with teachers’ greater intentions to leave rather than stay, and
emotional exhaustion in particular related with teachers’ intentions to leave rather
than even move to another ECE job, only partially supporting our second hypothesis.
Teachers emotionally exhausted by their job may be more likely to seek a job away
from the ECE field, having experienced continuously high levels of job-related stress
that overloads their system (Manlove & Guzell, 1997; Hall-Kenyon et al., 2014). In con-
trast, teachers with more personal stress may not connect this with their job (as
shown in the small relative risk ratio for leaving over staying, RRR = 1.05, and small
coefficient for professional commitment, ß = 0.01).
Surprisingly, we did not find coping to be related with any of the turnover outcomes.
Potentially, teachers with low coping skills were also emotionally exhausted and that
variation was accounted for in the emotional exhaustion relationships (Chang, 2013).
Alternatively, the large variation in coping styles (evident in the larger standard errors)
could point to the variable relationships among different types of coping, which could
be further investigated individually. Teachers’ emotional regulation styles, however, did
correspond with their turnover intentions and their commitment. Use of reappraisal
strategies was associated with a greater likelihood of moving and leaving over staying,
perhaps depending on which explanation individual teachers created to explain their
situation (Kyriacou, 2001; Lazarus & Folkman, 1987; Tsouloupas et al., 2010). Teachers
experiencing difficult interactions with children in their classroom, when reappraising
the situation, could explain this trouble resulting from the classroom or center environ-
ment (leading them to seek a new job) or due to their own lack of skills developing
relationships with children (leading them to leave the ECE field). In contrast, suppressive
strategies related with teachers’ greater likelihood of staying over moving and a stron-
ger professional commitment, likely indicating teachers may have been able to down-
play and ignore issues at their jobs in order to continue. However, these teachers using
suppression, linked with more negative affect (Gross & John, 2003), may be more likely
to physically stay but also leaving mentally and emotionally (Hughes, 2001).
More intrinsically motivated teachers were more likely to state an intention to stay
over leaving, or even move over leaving the field, as well as to display higher profes-
sional commitment, compared to teachers with more extrinsic motivation. According
to the binary logistic regression results, more intrinsic motivation seemed to link with
a greater likelihood of staying in general, however, the multinomial regression results
revealed while greater intrinsic motivation is associated with staying over leaving,
these teachers are also more likely to move to another job in the field. These results,
along with the overall high levels of intrinsic motivation, confirm previous studies por-
traying teaching as a profession attracting people with intrinsic motivations (Lortie,
1975). Teachers with more intrinsic motivation, most interested in making a difference
 EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 15

for children, may be more likely to seek a new job within the field rather than stay at
a place where they feel ineffectual and before seeking another field. Overall, these
intrinsic rewards systems entice teachers to stay in the field, to continue working with
children and making a difference (Ashiedu & Scott-Ladd, 2012).

Implications for research, practice, and policy

Our results suggest reforms aimed at improving preschool teachers’ commitment and
retention in the classroom may target improvements to teachers’ working conditions
and well-being. For example, administrators may help teachers reduce their psycho-
logical burden and develop ways of dealing with the high demands of work in the
ECE field. Additionally, policies to improve teacher retention should recognize the
importance of teachers’ intrinsic motivation by helping teachers achieve their intrinsic
goals and psychic rewards (Lortie, 1975; Watt & Richardson, 2007), rather than policy
focusing solely on pay as a motivator (Torquati, Raikes, & Huddleston-Casas, 2007).
While low pay remains an issue for ECE teachers, recent studies have shown that
teachers care about their experience in the classroom, including how this environment
helps or hinders their ability to help students (Totenhagen et al., 2016; Wells, 2015).
Our findings underscore the importance of working conditions that value teachers’
psychological well-being.
The results from this study also illustrate the wealth of knowledge that can be
extracted through a closer examination of teachers’ intentions and comparison of out-
comes beyond a simple decision to leave their job. Although turnover may be the
ultimate outcome of interest, a better understanding of how teachers come to that
decision can enlighten the black box of teachers’ seemingly instantaneous turnover
decision. Investigations of teachers’ commitment, their intentions to move or leave,
and other proximal outcomes can help researchers, policy makers, and directors in the
industry gain a more holistic understanding of the path leading teachers to leave
the classroom.
Future research examining early childhood teachers’ turnover decisions may clarify
what draws teachers away from the field or compels them to stay within the field but
seek another job. While we found statistically significant relationships between teach-
ers’ working conditions, psychological functioning, and intrinsic motivation and indica-
tors of their likelihood to turnover, future research examining turnover behavior can
help confirm whether these teachers’ inclinations translate into their actual decisions.
Additionally, further investigation of specific working conditions and coping mecha-
nisms could explicate the dynamics of their relationship with ECE teacher turnover.

Limitations
The cross-sectional structure of our data and correlational analysis, limit the causal
inferences from our findings. The relationships examined in this study could poten-
tially be produced by confounding factors or operate in reverse order (i.e. teachers
who intend to leave perceive their working conditions more negatively). The low
response rate to the survey was another limitation, and rather than constructing
16 A. A. GRANT ET AL.

weights, we accounted for our complex sampling design through conservative stand-
ard error estimations; potentially these factors could have added bias to our estimates.
An examination in the future of actual turnover data could provide further information
about teachers’ actual decisions and confirm whether their intentions actually translate
into their job decisions. Also, future studies could account for the covariance among
predictors, which could be introducing bias, by using other statistical methods.
Although the survey data from teachers’ self-report provided meaningful information
on teachers’ perception of their psychological well-being, working conditions, and
turnover intentions, self-report data create increased shared variance within responses
– the variation between different teachers’ perceptions can create a bias in response
when comparing their reports. One method to reduce this weakness would be direct
observation of working conditions or surveying other personnel working with
these teachers.

Conclusion
The results from this study also indicate that examination of ECE teacher turnover
could benefit from acknowledging the differences between teachers who are leaving
to seek other jobs in the ECE field versus those who are seeking to leave the field
entirely. For instance, providing teachers with ways to deal with stress could help
keep them in the field, while providing teachers using their reappraisal strategies with
alternative courses of action at their current job could help retain these teachers and
further the stability and quality of child care and education provided.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID
Ashley A. Grant http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4647-723X

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