“I Quit!” What Factors Are Associated with School Psychologists Considering Leaving the Profession?

Abstract School psychology has long experienced a shortage of professionals, greatly impacting the effectiveness of the profession in fully utilizing its training. However, research has yet to examine factors contributing to school psychologists considering leaving the profession in both school and non-school settings. Using survey data collected from 290 school psychologists across school and non-school settings, the current study sought to determine what demographic factors, graduate training and job factors, and job-related perceptions were related to whether school psychologists seriously considered leaving the profession in the past five years. A hierarchical binary logistic regression analysis was conducted with the model accounting for 34.8% of the variance in participants’ likelihood of seriously considering leaving the profession. Results showed that 52.4% of participants had seriously considered leaving the profession, with age, school psychologist-to-student ratio, years employed, and work climate emerging as significant predictors for considering leaving the field. Conversely, employment setting and administrative pressure were not significant predictors. Findings highlight the need for considerable changes in workload for school psychologists, paired with organizational support and strategic methods to recruit more professionals to improve retention across both school and non-school settings.