Retention of secondary school teachers: what motivates them to stay? A narrative ethnographic study of five teachers' lived experiences of ongoing commitment to their profession

Abstract

This thesis uses narrative methodology to explore the ongoing career journeys of five secondary schoolteachers in England, presented from my perspective as a former schoolteacher. I aimed to understand how and why they remained committed to their profession by gaining insight into their professional motivation and their means of reconciling known demotivators associated with teacher attrition. I developed flexible mixed methods to capture a snapshot of their individual professional experiences. During the Covid pandemic of 2020, the year self-isolation and social distancing entered our lexicon, I conducted semi-structured interviews which were used to create thematic networks, and transposed the hand-transcribed accounts to third person narratives which participants had the opportunity to comment on. The methodology aimed to construct a three-dimensional research space (Clandinin, 2006), incorporating participants’ interaction with others, the continuity of their experience, and the situation(s) they inhabited. I draw on the work of Stronach et al. (2002) to show that the three components of motivation collectively referred to as Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Ryan & Deci, 2000b) occur within divided, pluralistic, conflicted professional identities. The findings show how the first component of SDT, competence, becomes interwoven with the principles and language of performativity; how the second, relatedness, is complicated by competing allegiances which undermine teacher security; and that the third, autonomy, is always limited. I elicit a sense of fulfilment as an additional feature of motivation and identify acceptance as a further contributor to teachers’ ongoing commitment. I conclude that whilst teacher motivation is shifting and individualised, as are the conflicted professional identities underpinning reasons to teach, both motivation and identity are always a response to the circumstances and system of which they are products. The study shows that motivated teachers are generally able to maintain a positive outlook despite the tensions they must navigate, as long as they perceive an omnipresent possibility to alter their path.