Administrative Climate and Novices' Intent to Remain Teaching

Using survey data from novice teachers at the elementary and middle school level across 11 districts, multilevel logistic regressions were estimated to examine the association between novices' perceptions of the administrative climate and their desire to remain teaching within their schools. We find that the probability that a novice teacher reports a desire to remain teaching within her school is reduced when she perceives the quality of relations between teachers and administrators as poor, even after controlling for a prior measure of intent to remain teaching. The robustness of this inference was quantified with respect to concerns about omitted confounding variables. The findings from this study have implications for understanding how novice teachers evaluate the administrative climate in their schools and how this influences their intended career decisions.