A study of secondary mathematics teacher dropouts in Texas

Purposes. The purposes of this study were to determine what happened to prospective and certified mathematics teachers who had left the teaching profession and to determine what factors influenced their retention or nonretention. Some prospective mathematics teachers left the profession for which they had trained for four or five years before actually entering the classroom, while other mathematics teachers left the profession after one or more years of classroom experience. Procedures. The sample population used in this study were 1964 and 1965 graduates who were certified to teach mathematics in secondary school and student teachers who were doing their practice teaching in mathematics during the fall semester, 1968. The names and addresses of these persons were obtained from those colleges and universities which were listed in the Texas Education Agency's report on Teacher Supply and Demand in Texas and which had graduated a minimum of ten prospective mathematics teachers within the two years of 1964 and 1965. [...]