Postdoctoral scholar at the University of Missouri
K-12 Educator Recruitment and Retention
Does Mentoring Impact Beginning Teacher Retention? A Longitudinal Program Evaluation
Yujia Liu & Emily K Penner We use seven years of administrative data from a western state to examine the causal effect of their novice teacher mentoring program on teacher turnover. This study leverages rotating program funding at the district level to conduct a reduced-form analysis as well as an instrumental variable analysis. This study helps to clarify conflicts between descriptive, quasi-experimental, and experimental studies examining the effects of mentoring on new teacher retention.
What Educator Applicants’ Short Essays Tell You about Their Potential Job Fit and Performance (Journal of Education Human Resources)
Yujia Liu,Emily K Penner, Sabrina M Solanki, & Xuehan Zhou One low-cost way to screen applicants and learn about their beliefs, values, and pedagogy is through their writing samples. However, there is limited research linking writing sample data with teachers’ applications and on the job outcomes. The present study analyses six years of educator applicant data from a large urban school district. Using multiple text analysis techniques, this study aims to understand whether essay quality and content are associated with teacher characteristics and their outcomes on the job.
Emily K Penner, Yujia Liu, & Aaron J Ainsworth Non-teaching staff comprise over half of all school employees and their turnover may be consequential for school operation, culture, and student success, yet we lack evidence documenting their attrition. We use 11 years of administrative data from Oregon to examine mobility and exit among teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, and other staff. Although teachers dominate staff turnover conversations, they are consistently the most stable employee group. Some school factors, like the proportion of students being disciplined, predict higher turnover rates for all employees, but within-school turnover between staff groups is weakly correlated and some school context variables are differentially associated with the turnover of various employee groups. Results suggest that employee turnover in schools is not a homogenous phenomenon across staffing groups.
Chanh B. Lam, Yujia Liu, J. Cameron Anglum, & Tuan D. Nguyen This study examines the demographics, qualifications, and turnover of STEM teachers in Kansas and Missouri—two contiguous, predominantly rural states in the Midwestern region of the United States. The existing literature lacks detailed insights regarding U.S. STEM teachers, especially with recent economic and social changes over the COVID-19 pandemic, and there is particularly limited evidence regarding STEM teachers in the U.S. Midwest. Utilizing large-scale administrative longitudinal data, we filled part of this gap by documenting the characteristics and turnover patterns of STEM teachers in Kansas and Missouri over a 13-year period, from 2010 through 2023.
Di Xu, Yujia Liu, Zhiling Meng Shea, Kimberly Vincent-Layton, Jeffrey White, Michelle Pacansky-Brock This study introduces the Humanizing Online STEM Academy, a six-week professional development program designed specifically to promote humanizing and inclusive teaching within STEM college online courses. We document in detail the Academy’s design and instructional approach, and examine its impact on the perceptions and instructional practices of 79 faculty participants from eight California institutions, using pre- and post-Academy surveys and in-depth interviews. Results indicate that participants found the humanizing elements covered in the Academy highly beneficial for building trust with students. Post-Academy, instructors reported increased confidence in online teaching, stronger belief in their ability to address equity gaps, and enhanced support for diverse student backgrounds. Their instructional approaches also evolved to prioritize interpersonal interactions and individual student needs. Interviews revealed heightened awareness of student diversity and intentional efforts to accommodate it.
Qiujie Li, Maricela Banuelos, Yujia Liu, & Di Xu This study developed a coding scheme of humanization practices and conducted content analysis of 244 excerpts of teaching practices from 17 online courses that demonstrated high levels of humanized instruction out of 100 randomly selected online courses at a large community college. The results reveal eight techniques that instructors used to humanize their online courses. These techniques, along with the concrete examples, lay a groundwork for future research about the relationship between humanization techniques and student outcomes in virtual environments and provide actionable guidance on how to humanize an online course.
Stephanie M. Reich, Yujia Liu, Nestor Tulagan, Esmeralda Martin, Melissa Dahlin, & Natasha Cabrera The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly altered family life, and research among adults and families has found increases financial stress, mental health problems, screen time, parental conflict, and child behavior problems. Using the Family Stress Model, we consider how these constructs might relate to each other during the pandemic. From surveys of 247 predominately Latine mothers and fathers of children under 4 years of age in the U.S., we found that financial strain was related to children’s media exposure and use, largely through impacts on parents’ mental health and coparenting relationship. Interestingly, only use of television in the background and during mealtimes were associated with increases in parents’ perception of increases in children’s behavior problems. Such findings better capture how stress may operate in a family system and offer a way to counsel parents about healthier media habits for young children.
