Teacher views regarding learning agility, teacher quality and teacher retention

The objective of the study is to determine the impact of the learning agility and teacher quality in the teacher retention by identifying the views of teachers regarding learning agility, teacher quality and teacher retention. Besides, the study also demonstrates if there are significant differences in the views of teachers depending on the personal variables of teachers. The population of the study, having been conducted through correlational research model, involves 1218 teachers working at state and private middle and high schools (n=3896) located in Adapazarı District of Sakarya Province at 2018-2019 Academic Year (n=138) and who have been selected through segmented-simple random sampling. As for data collection tools, "Personal Info Sheet" and "Learning Agility Scale", "Teacher Quality Scale" and "Teacher Retention Scale" adapted into Turkish culture standards by the researcher have been used in the study. Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis have ensured the validity and reliability of these three scales as well as their adaption into Turkish culture standards. SPSS for Mac OS 22.0 and LISREL 8.7 software programmes have been used in analyses. It has been marked that the data showed normal distribution once the skewness and kurtosis values have been investigated. Thus, parametric analyses have been implemented. Frequency (f) and percentage (%) have been used to determine the distribution of the participants. In the first sub-problem, arithmetic mean and standard deviation, considered as descriptive statistics, have been used while in the secondary sub-problem, unpaired t Test has been used in two groups comparison for purposes of demonstrating if there are significant differences in the views of teachers depending on personal variables (sex, marital status, type of institution, field of study, professional seniority, term of employment at school, the school of graduation, union membership and wage satisfaction) and in multiple group comparisons one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) has been used. In the third sub-problem, Pearson Correlation Analysis has been used to set the correlations among the views of teachers while simple linear regression analysis has been conducted in the fourth sub-problem. The level of significance has been regarded as p=,05. The outcomes of the study based on the findings have been summed up briefly. The views of teachers regarding general learning agility and its sub-dimensions are at "often" level while the views regarding sub-dimensions of change agility are at "sometimes" level. People agility, one of the sub-dimensions of learning agility, holds the highest average while change agility owns the lowest average. The views of teachers regarding teacher quality are at "always" level. The average of teacher leadership dimension, one of the sub-dimensions of teacher quality, is higher than other dimensions while instructional practice sub-dimension are at high levels. The views of teachers regarding teacher retention are at "I agree" level. The views of teachers regarding general learning agility and its all sub dimensions have marked no significant difference depending on the variables of marital status, type of school, the school of graduation, union membership and wage satisfaction while they have marked significant differences depending on the variables of sex, type of institution, field of study, professional seniority and term of employment. The views of teachers regarding teacher retention have marked no significant difference depending on the variables of sex, marital status, type of school, field of study, professional seniority, term of employment and the school of graduation while they have marked significant differences depending on the variables of type of institution, union membership and wage satisfaction. The views of teachers regarding teacher quality have marked significant differences depending on all personal variables. Positive mid and low level correlations are available among the views of teachers regarding scales. Learning agility and teacher quality scale scores are regarded as a meaningful predictor of teacher retention scale scores. Several recommendations regarding implementation and for researchers and policy-makers have been generated based on the findings and outcomes of the study.