Akadēmiskais centrshttps://doi.org/10.22364/htqe.2022.31 | 435-448 | PDF
Promoting Teacher Resilience to Remain in the Profession
Indra Odiņa, Simona Semjonova
University of Latvia, Latvia
Abstract. With the growing teacher attrition rates caused by aging, burnout, and changes in the education system, more and more teaching positions remain vacant every year. Despite the difficulties, however, there are a lot of teachers who choose to remain in the profession; they feel emotionally fulfilled at their jobs and masterfully balance their work requirements and personal life. Resilience might be one of the factors that supports teachers in dealing with the demands of their professional life. The aim of the research is to explore how teacher resilience can help teachers remain in the profession.
Transcendental phenomenological research was carried out to reach the aim of the study. A questionnaire for in-service teachers was used to measure their resilience with the Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA) and select interview candidates. Narrative interviews were carried out with eight resilient teachers in three different stages of their careers – working as teachers for five years or less, six to fifteen years and more than fifteen years. The interviewees represented three different cities, various school sizes, and both private and public schools. In the interviews, the teachers’ understanding of resilience and their experiences as resilient educators were explored.
Based on the narrative interviews, ways to maintain teacher resilience were proposed. It can be concluded that resilient teachers are more likely to remain in the profession, as they are able to mobilize their internal and external resources to cope with the challenges of the job.
Keywords: teacher attrition, teacher career stages, teacher resilience, teacher retention
In: Human, Technologies and Quality of Education, 2022. Proceedings of Scientific Papers = Cilvēks, tehnoloģijas un izglītības kvalitāte, 2022. Rakstu krājums
Riga, University of Latvia, 2022. 1135 p. Ed. L. Daniela
https://doi.org/10.22364/htqe.2022
ISBN 978-9934-18-911-1