Today Belinda Downey submitted her PhD. Hooray!
Her primary supervisor was A/Prof Will Letts and her co-supervisors over her candidature have been Dr Leanne Gibbs, Dr Tamara Cumming, Dr Doreen Rorison and myself.
It was a joyful celebration with some of Belinda's "village" who walked with her as she undertook her PhD.
Retention of early childhood educators (ECEs) has become a wicked problem with estimates of more than 39,000 ECEs currently required to meet workforce demands and projections that an additional 24,000 ECEs may be needed by 2025. Attrition of ECEs can negatively impact upon the relationships held with children and families, the quality of care and education, and workload of educators. Although wages and working conditions have been identified as one concern, there are additional complex issues impacting retention including professional recognition of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) field, administrative and regulatory burden, and the intensity of the ECE role. While high attrition can have compounding effects, such as job dissatisfaction and burnout, increased educator wellbeing, supportive leadership, and professional development have been found to support the retention of ECEs. Retention in ECEC specifically focused on the Northern Territory of Australia provides a unique perspective regarding complex issues impacting retention in the ECEC sector. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate factors that enabled or constrained ECEs’ retention in the Northern Territory.
Participants were recruited through purposive random sampling, across the ‘top end’ of the Northern Territory in Australia. Yarning sessions (cf. focus groups) were undertaken, discussing the ECEC profession, national sector reforms, and retention. A constructivist grounded theory approach was used, and a constant comparative analysis of the data was undertaken. Through the constructed grounded theory methodology, a substantiative grounded theory was generated to explain attrition and retention in the ECEC field. The generated theory supported the concept that connection within the ECEC field fostered retention resulting in the substantive grounded theory, building connection builds retention. The connections that were identified as supporting retention in this research were the relationships educators built with the children, families, colleagues, their wider professional networks, and to their profession.
The research findings generated one core category, adjusting practices and accommodating values, as the overarching main concern for participants. The core category was central to all of the data categories and held a traceable connection to them. The core category had two properties, struggle and hope: (a) Hopeful educators felt connected to their role, their ECEC service and the policy and legislation of ECEC, (b) Struggling educators felt disconnected from either their role, their ECEC service, the policy, and legislation of ECEC or all three. A basic social process of attrition and retention was identified which formed a three-stage process and became the basis of this thesis. The first stage, becoming a professional, the second, belonging in an organisation, and the third stage, engaging with policy and legislation, participants either found hope in the connections developed through these stages and were retained or they struggled to build connection through these stages leading to turnover or attrition. Participants ability to find connection depended on their ability to find hope in adjusting their practices and accommodating their educational values.
The findings identified that when becoming a professional the participants who struggled most were those who had limited support and access to resources (both social and material). Belonging in an organisation created struggle for those participants who were experiencing resistance or horizontal violence due to a misalignment of educational practices with their colleagues. Participants who were studying also identified struggle through increased stress and personal time pressures. When engaging with policy and legislation participants’ feelings of being undervalued in their role, and financial insecurity due to the low wages, combined with the onerous position of the requirement to transition to multiple polices and legislation at once decreased their job satisfaction and wellbeing, which increased their risk of turnover or attrition.
In comparison this research found that ECEC retention could be supported when becoming a professional through the development of trusted, collaborative relationships, practice-level mentors and scaffolded examples of documentation and assessment. Similarly, belonging in an organisation was fostered through leadership that encouraged and supported inclusive practices and values-based approaches through robust conversations that encouraged professional autonomy and agency building participants’ confidence, knowledge and skills. Participants who engaged with the policy and legislation found that the Australian Government’s Early Years Learning Framework supported their understandings around practice and provided them with the terminology they needed to advocate for their profession. Participants’ ability to articulate what they did as an educator provided visibility for the professional nature of the role in the wider community.
The impacts that increased ECEs’ attrition or turnover was a lack of support or knowledge around building relationships and connections. Conversely, ECEs’ retention was enabled through the connections these ECEs developed, which increased their motivation to ensure high quality care and education and the probability of their retention. These findings supported the substantive grounded theory that building connection builds retention, which provides a possible solution moving into the future, to the ECEC fields’ wicked problem of retention.
