Decision to Leave or Remain in the Career as Early Childhood Educator: A Binary Logistic Regression Model

Abstract

As benchmarking for individual future success, selecting a profession is certainly a vital and critical decision. It is very difficult to anticipate whether one will remain in the same profession during his or her entire career or not. This is due to the fact that the choice to stay in or leave the profession is always influenced by many factors. Having a career as an early childhood educator is indeed an exciting and challenging. Yet, the decision to remain in this field is tremendously a difficult and critical decision to make. This may due to the substantial responsibility that should be carried out by every early childhood educator. Furthermore, the accessibility to quality education in early childhood is limited, especially in developing countries. Previous literatures cite many factors that impact a teacher's decision to remain in his or her career. Hence, this study aims to examine the decision factors of early childhood teachers' career retention, whether to remain in or leave the teaching profession, from two aspects, namely economic and non-economic viewpoints in Malaysian's context. In particular, non-economic factors, namely knowledge, skills and practices are considered to be vital in influencing those career decisions among early childhood teachers in Malaysia. In order to achieve the objective of this study, the logistic model is utilized in identifying the magnitudes values of variables, whether to stay or leave the vocation as early childhood Educator (ECE). The finding exhibits income as a key factor for an early childhood teachers to stay permanently in the profession. Otherwise, they are more likely to switch careers that promise them higher income in the long run. Greater salaries will encourage them to obtain further certification in early childhood education for career advancement and qualifications to continue working in the profession. Lastly, the influence of other variables, such as teacher skills and knowledge also determine their decision to remain in this vocation. It implies that better knowledge and skill will definitely encourage them to stay permanently in this field.