This applied dissertation was designed to examine the correlation between teacher job satisfaction, job retention, tenure and its effect on student achievement and the adjusted cohort graduation rate. This study involved the use of a sequential exploratory qualitative design as a pragmatic philosophical approach to examining the correlation. The researcher utilized three distinct datasets: The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018; The National Center for Educational Statistics, Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate; and the Ohio Department of Education, Ohio Teacher Evaluation System.
An analysis of the data revealed that statistically significant themes emerged among the datasets for the job satisfaction and job retention of teachers. The most successful themes involved hierarchy of needs characteristics such as: equitable compensation, employment contract length, coworker relationships, working environment, self-efficacy, and self-actualization. Obviously, these findings raise questions about the dynamic and credibility of the hierarchy of needs for teachers and their correlation in motivating students to achieve the adjusted cohort graduation rate.
As, current research provided little to no evidence to suggest the correlation between teacher job satisfaction, job retention, tenure and how it affects student achievement. Characteristic variables, which have frequently been used to define high value teachers, such as value-added models (VAMs) purport to be able to identify a teacher’s effect on students’ test scores. Even though VAMs evaluate a teachers’ contribution in any given year by comparing current test scores of students to the previous year, value-added modeling completed dismisses the correlation of the hierarchy of needs for teachers to student achievement and the adjusted cohort graduation rate
