Date of Award
2012
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Abraham S. Fischler College of Education
Advisor
Bonnie Ronson
Committee Member
Barbara Gerard
Committee Member
Ronald P. Kern
Keywords
administration, child care centers, communication, continuous learning, early childhood education, early childhood education organizations, employees, empirical analysis, ethics, interview data, leadership, leadership attributes, leadership effectiveness, leadership qualities, leadership training, lived experience, phenomenology, qualitative research, relationships, staff retention, team management, thematic analysis, values
Abstract
A qualitative phenomenological methodology was used in this study to explore lived experience of staff retention among 15 child care center Directors (Moustakas, 1994; Sokolowski, 2008; Van Manen, 1990). In this study, the researcher also attempted to identify the skills that are critical for successful administration of early childhood education organizations and to discover what leadership training can aid leaders to retain quality staff. The study addressed 3 applicable research questions:
1. What is the lived experience of staff retention among center directors?
2. What leadership attributes promote staff retention in early childhood centers?
3. Which types of leadership trainings are useful for increasing the ability of directors to retain employees?
The literature review highlighted factors contributing to effective staff retention. A 5-step empirical analysis process (Moustakas, 1994; Van Manen, 1990) was used to code, sort, and distill the study‘s interview data.
The 13 interview questions resulted in 5 overall themes that emerged from thematic clusters: relationships/ communication, passion/commitment, continuous learning, leadership, and ethics/values. The findings showed strong similarities between the study participants‘ lived experiences of staff retention successes and experiences presented in the relevant literature.
Recommendations are that the early childhood education industry might benefit from employing the approach extracted from current successful practitioners. Researchers may wish to explore additional specific areas of interest and add insights to future research studies.