Journal article : Review
A systematic review of STEM teacher recruitment and retention interventions
- Abstract:
- The worldwide problem of teacher recruitment and retention is particularly pronounced in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects, due in part to a lack of trainee teachers and to high rates of attrition. The teacher shortage has resulted in non-specialist teachers teaching STEM subjects and is likely to have a negative effect on the next generation of STEM students and STEM teachers. Numerous studies have outlined, and in some cases evaluated, recruitment and retention interventions, but to our knowledge a comprehensive review of interventions specifically aimed at recruiting STEM teachers has not yet been done. We reviewed 25 studies (9 recruitment, 11 retention, 5 both). Most interventions were financial (13/25), others included teacher education and alternative pathways. We evaluated study quality and the method each study used to assess intervention effectiveness. Financial incentives do not appear effective for recruitment despite being the most common incentive. Financial incentives seem to be more effective for retention; 3/9 higher quality studies found positive results. Findings for the other types of intervention were mixed and due to low design quality, not compelling. Our findings suggest that financial incentives might be effective for retention. Further research is needed to determine what interventions work for recruitment as the most common, financial incentives, do not appear effective. Studies investigating the efficacy of interventions need to be more rigorous with large sample sizes, comparison groups, and ideally randomised-control trials. There is also room for innovation as we did not find much evidence of novel intervention types.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.1MB, Terms of use)
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(Preview, Supplementary materials, pdf, 138.6KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1186/s40594-025-00550-6
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- International Journal of STEM Education More from this journal
- Volume:
- 12
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- 33
- Publication date:
- 2025-07-01
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-05-22
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2196-7822
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Subtype:
-
Review
- Pubs id:
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2124824
- Local pid:
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pubs:2124824
- Deposit date:
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2025-05-18
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Thompson-Lee et al
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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