David W. Chapman

A Multiinstitutional, Path Analytic Validation of Tinto’s Model of College Withdrawal:

This study investigated the validity of Tinto’s (1975) model of college withdrawal in different types of institutions: 4-year residential institutions, 4-year commuter institutions, and 2-year commuter institutions. Analyses were conducted on a sample of 2,326 freshmen from 11 postsecondary institutions. The results generally supported the predictive validity of the model but suggested that interesting differences in the patterns of influence existed when the data were disaggregated by institutional type. The basic differences across type concerned the concepts of social and academic integration. Social integration played a stronger role in influencing persistence at 4-year, primarily residential institutions, while academic integration was more important at 2- and 4-year, primarily commuter institutions.

Translation Procedures for the Cross Cultural Use of Measurement Instruments

Over the last fifteen years there has been a rapid expansion of international cooperation in the field of education. One outgrowth of this is an interest in various cross-cultural instructional practices and principles of learning. Although a considerable literature suggests procedures and practices for conducting evaluation and research across cultures, until recently this research has been primarily of an anthropological and ethnographic variety. With the increased exchange of instructional and other educational materials, however, there is a growing interest in the interaction of such psychological variables as personality, intelligence, aptitude, and cognitive style. This trend has resulted in a rapidly expanding introduction of numerous questionnaires, tests, and other measurement instruments into the educational evaluation and research arsenals of other countries.

Teacher Retention: The Test of a Model:

This study was conducted as a test of a model of the influences on teacher retention. Discriminant analysis was used to study differences among three groups of college graduates with teaching certificates: (a) those who taught continuously, (b) those who started teaching but left teaching within 5 years, and (c) those who never taught. Meaningful differences were found among the groups in a pattern that supported the model. Implications for school administration, teacher training, and for further model development are discussed.

Attrition from Teaching Careers: A Discriminant Analysis

Building from J. I. Holland’s theory of career choice, this study investigated differences in (1) skills and abilities and (2) criteria used to judge differences in success between individuals who started as teachers and subsequently changed careers and those who started in and remained in teaching. Discriminant analyses were conducted separately for elementary and high school teachers whose first jobs after graduation were as teachers, on data provided by alumni (N = 690) from three Indiana universities. Those who did and did not leave teaching differed significantly in both their self-rated skills and abilities and in the importance they assigned to selected criteria of success. The results support hypotheses developed from Holland’s theory on the characteristics that would discriminate between those leaving and those staying in teaching.

Teacher Retention: A Further Examination.

AbstractThis study tested Chapmans model of the influences on teacher retention in teaching. Discriminant analysis was used to test the significance of differences among four groups of college graduates with teaching certificates: (a) taught continuously, (b) intermittent teachers, (c) left teaching, and (d) never taught. Significant differences were found among the groups in a pattern that supported the model. The four groups responded to different incentives in formulating their career choices. Implications for teacher education, school administration, and public policy concerned with the quality of schooling are discussed.

Cloning in academe: Mentorship and academic careers.

Mentor professors were surveyed with respect to their most successful “protégés” regarding scholarly production, the mentorship role, and their careers. Career stage, network stratification, and weak-tie theories provided the conceptual frameworks. The 62 mentors were highly productive professors who were predominantly both graduates and employees of research universities. Mentors overwhelmingly nominated as their most successful protégés those whose careers were essentially identical to their own—i.e., their “clones.” Women mentors named as most successfully protégés more than twice as many females and males than men did. More productive mentors linked with a greater number of protégés but were less knowledgable about their personal lives, as Granovetters theory would predict. The results also demonstrate the openness of the network within stratified levels.

A Model of the Influences on Teacher Retention

in teaching is on the decline (Atkin, 1981). If the quality of teachers declines, the quality of education they provide is likely to follow. The retention of highly qualified teachers already in the schools may help offset this trend. Second, those already in teaching have experienced a rapid change in the conditions that describe their workplace. For example, many people entered teaching in the belief that it would allow considerable career mobility (Lortie, 1975), yet with a declining number of students and a surplus of teachers in some parts of the country, many teachers no longer have the mobility they thought they were gaining in their choice of careers. Indeed, teachers believe they have little lateral mobility and less upward mobility than do people in other careers (Lowther & Chapman, 1981). This can lead to dissatisfaction and attrition from the

Teachers’ Satisfaction with Teaching

AbstractThis article proposes a conceptual scheme of the influences affecting teachers’ career satisfaction and reports a study using that scheme to investigate the relationship between selected abilities, values, and accomplishments and teachers’ career satisfaction. Results supported the scheme. Specifically, women were more satisfied with their teaching career than men. Teachers’ skills and abilities were significantly related to satisfaction but accounted for only small amounts of the additional variance. Career satisfaction is related to assigning little importance to activities and accomplishments that, given the structure of the school, may be difficult to achieve. Yet, actual accomplishments in these areas have a strong positive relationship to satisfaction. Last, the importance of recognition by administrators to teachers’ career satisfaction was discussed.

Validation of a theoretical model of college withdrawal: Interaction effects in a multi-institutional sample

This study investigated the validity of Tintos (1975) model of college withdrawal in four different types of institutions: residential universities, liberal arts colleges, two-year commuter institutions, and four-year commuter institutions. Analyses were conducted on a sample of 2,326 freshmen from 11 postsecondary institutions. The results generally supported the predictive validity of the model but suggested: (1) that the main-effects influence on persistence of measures of social and academic integration is modest, and (2) that the magnitude of the influence of particular aspects of social and academic integration depended to a significant degree on the characteristics of those students being considered. The theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Trends in Educational Administration in Developing Asia

The success many Asian countries have experienced in expanding access to and quality of basic education over the past three decades has been due largely to a declining enrollment rate, a booming economy, and national development strategies that favored education. However, new pressures created by urgent needs in health, environment, and population combined with an economic slump are fueling a rapid move toward more decentralized education systems. Decentralization in turn is placing new pressures on the school headmaster that few are prepared to meet. Across much of Asia, two of the most urgent challenges of the next decade will be to first strengthen and then support school level administration.