Master's Theses

Document Type

Thesis - campus only access

Date of Award

Summer 1959

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Education

Advisor

Committee Chair

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find contributing factors influencing teachers in selected high schools of Western Kansas to change teaching positions. No previous study or survey was located which dealt with this problem in Kansas. The procedure employed in this study was to contact several hundred secondary teachers who had changed teaching positions between 1955-1960. Questionnaires were sent to teachers in forty-nine selected high schools of Western Kansas, inviting them to participate in this study. There were 300 questionnaires sent out and 203, or 67 per cent, usable responses were received. Of this number, there were sixty women and 143 men respondents. Only the first five reasons listed by the respondents for changing positions were considered significant to the study. The findings of this study revealed “profession advancement” as the largest single factor causing mobility within the teaching profession. There were 57 per cent of the respondents who checked this factor. “Improvement of salary in another system” was ranked second, as 48 per cent of the respondents checked it as a reason for moving to another system. Other important factors listed in order of frequency were “town too small”, “dissatisfaction with administrator”, “dissatisfaction with community”, and "too many activities to sponsor”. It was found that 82 per cent of the respondents were married and 42 per cent of the male respondents held Master's degrees. Marriage apparently does not lessen teacher turnover, while the higher the education of the teacher, the more mobility may be expected. Other conclusions of the study were: (1) there is a need for more adequate promotion policy in the selected high schools of Western Kansas, and (2) there is a need for a more uniform salary schedule to be set up by a professional organization to attract and hold teachers.

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© 1959 Terry Dean Keeley

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