Published Online in: Educational Researcher November 12, 2024
Michael Gottfried, University of Pennsylvania Colby Woods, University of Pennsylvania Arya Ansari, The Ohio State University
Research and policy have focused predominantly on the individual consequences for students who miss school. Yet, absenteeism does not occur in a vacuum, and less work has focused on how student absenteeism correlates to classroom dynamics. While there has been some focus on how absent students affect their classmates, practically no attention has been paid towards teachers. We propose in this study that student absences make it challenging for teachers to enjoy the very function of their jobs and thus experience more dissatisfaction at work as a result. Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011, we find that teachers have lower job satisfaction when more of their students are absent. However, we only find statistically significant differences for broad aspects of teacher satisfaction – job enjoyment, usefulness, and belief in the profession – rather than differences among other, related, measures of teaching. Implications are discussed.
Read the press release: "Study: Student Absenteeism Crisis May Be Hurting Teacher Job Satisfaction"
Study citation: Gottfried, M.A., Woods C. S., & Ansari, A. (2024). Do teachers with absent students feel less job satisfaction? Educational Researcher. Prepublished November 12, 2024.
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