Date of Conferral

7-17-2026

Date of Award

July 2026

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Education

Advisor

Andrea Wilson

Abstract

Throughout the United States, K–12 public school teachers are leaving the profession, contributing to teacher shortages and instability in classrooms and schools. Teacher persistence is critical to student success, yet little was known about the nature of the predictive relationship between grit and psychological well-being on job persistence among K–12 public school teachers in the United States. Guided by the framework of positive psychology, the purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental correlational study was to investigate the nature of the predictive relationship between the independent variables grit, as measured by the 12-Item Grit Scale, and psychological well-being, as measured by the 9-Item Psychological Well-being Scale, on the dependent variable job persistence, as measured by the number of years of teaching experience. Two research questions were crafted to examine the direct predictive as well as the mediating and moderating relationships among the variables. Anonymous online survey data were collected from 171 teachers with at least 1 year of experience as a full-time K–12 public school teacher in the United States. The direct predictive relationship was statistically significant (p = .018) with the two predictors explaining about 3.5% of the variation in the outcome variable collectively. Grit was a statistically significant direct predictor of job persistence (p = .005). Psychological well-being was a non-mediator and a non-moderator. By understanding the role of grit and psychological well-being on teachers’ job persistence, educational leaders may be better prepared to lead their organizations and address the teacher shortages, thereby influencing positive social change and improving academic outcomes for students.

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