Developing and Validating a Comprehensive Measure of Early Childhood Teacher Working Conditions and their Associations with Well-Being and Turnover Intent

We developed a holistic and comprehensive measure with specific dimensions relevant to early care and education (ECE) teachers’ work: physical demands and resources, cognitive-professional job demands and resources, psycho-social demands and resources, and organizational resources. We used a multi-step process to test this measure’s validity and reliability with a national sample in the United States. A criterion validation process involved an examination of the associations of the dimensions of job demands and resources with teachers’ physical, psychological, and professional well-being and turnover intent. Overall, this measure shows satisfactory levels of reliability and validity. Most job demands and resources are associated with teacher well-being and turnover intent. Associations between match dimensions were stronger for physical and psychosocial working conditions and outcomes, but psycho-social working conditions are most consistently associated with holistic well-being and turnover intent. We provided implications for practice and policy to use the tool for understanding and supporting the ECE workforce better.