Butcher, Keith A.2019-12-172019-12-17December 22019-12December 2https://hdl.handle.net/10657/5567Background: Teacher retention remains a crisis nationally. While a variety of interventions have sought to curtail the number of teachers exiting the field each year, districts continue to lose high-quality teachers at an increasingly staggering rate. Interventions notwithstanding, nearly 30% of early career teachers leave the field after solely one year in the classroom. High teacher attrition rates result in negative consequences such as loss of district funds and low student achievement (Barnes, Crow & Schaefer, 2007; Carroll & Foster, 2010). This qualitative case study focused on one Title I elementary campus in a suburban school district, specifically three first- and second-year teachers, one instructional coach and the campus principal, and sought to document the factors behind the teachers’ decision to remain on staff at their campus. Purpose: The study examined the impact of having direct support from an instructional coach on the retention of early career teachers. To guarantee its purpose was comprehensively addressed, the following research questions navigated the extent of this study: (1) How would you describe the impact of having direct support from an instructional coach on the retention of early career teachers? (1a) How important is the effectiveness of an instructional coach on the retention of early career teachers? (1b) How do participants describe the instructional coaching model and its role in teacher retention? Methods: Each educator participated in semi-structured interviews. The classroom teachers participated in two separate interviews totaling approximately 50 minutes. The instructional coach and campus principal participated in one interview, ranging from 20 to 30 minutes. The elementary campus acted as the bounded system and the participants provided further insight into the operation in terms of retention of early career teachers. Interviews were audiotaped to ensure accuracy and later transcribed and coded following Bhattacharya’s and Tesch’s methods (Battacharya, 2017; Creswell, 2014). Upon completion of the interview, an open-ended questionnaire was administered to the campus teachers to allow for extended responses regarding their experiences with an instructional coach. To triangulate the data and further describe the setting, campus and district data focusing on academic performance, student profile, and campus culture were also analyzed in addition to data on teacher retention. Results: Participants shared that their professional relationship with an instructional coach largely impacted their decision to remain at their current campus. Participants also noted that whereas they appreciated a personal relationship with their instructional coach, the coach’s effectiveness held more importance to them in their role as a classroom teacher. Participants also communicated that the chosen instructional model employed at the campus level affected their capacity as an educator; therefore, the elected model played a role in their retention. Conclusion: This research study shows that effective instructional coaching can be utilized as an intervention to curb teacher attrition. District and campus leaders can initiate practices to increase the effectiveness of instructional coaches as a means to increase teacher capacity and retention.application/pdfengThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).Teacher retentionInstructional coachingTeacher retentionNew teachers2019-12-17Thesisborn digital