Exploring and Improving the Potential Factors of Preschool Teacher Resignation Using the Stratified Bayesian Best-Worst Method

Abstract

The high turnover rate of preschool teachers in the educational sector threatens the ability to retain competent teaching staff and affects the quality of teaching and the development of early education in many countries. These ramifications are especially poignant given their alignment with the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs) - notably “quality education,” “good health and well-being,” and “decent work and economic growth.” Reducing the turnover rate of educators, especially at the preschool level, has become an urgent issue for the education community. Therefore, this paper develops a multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) model based on expert knowledge to construct an evaluation model of the main factors for the resignation of preschool teachers. These factors comprise three main dimensions: personal factors, internal organizational culture, and external environment. First, potential resignation factors were identified through a literature survey and interviews with several experts. Then, a stratified Bayesian best-worst method (SB-BWM) was used to evaluate the importance of these potential factors. The method generated the optimal group weights of the resignation factors and ranked them. The results of this study reveal that the top five resignation factors are high work stress, work-induced emotional exhaustion/job burnout, poor work atmosphere, high workload, and low collaborative relationships with partners. The results can help preschool education operators and education ministries responsible for decision-making to understand the factors leading to the resignation of preschool teachers so that they can develop strategies to improve retention. Management implications are given to improve operational performance and effectively reduce the teacher turnover rate to promote stability in the learning environment so important to early childhood development, which will lead to quality preschool education development.