Influencing factors of Chinese special education teacher turnover intention: understanding the roles of subject well-being, social support, and work engagement

Turnover intentions are peoples' plans of turnover action, representing their expressed motivation to perform the turnover behavior, which may be the best predictor of turnover. The study aimed to investigate the level of turnover intentions of special education teachers in mainland China as well as exploring the factors that influenced their turnover intention. A total of 496 Chinese special education teachers participated in the current study. Results found that (1) the turnover intention was influenced by gender and years of teaching, meaning that female teachers and teachers with more years of teaching had the lower turnover intention, and (2) subject well-being and social support were negatively related to the turnover intention above and beyond teachers' demographic background, which was mediated by work engagement. To stem the special education teacher turnover intentions, suggestions for policymakers are discussed to lower the turnover intention of special education teachers as well as increase the special education teacher retention in mainland China.