Soc Psychol Educ https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-018-9443-0 1 3 Physical education teachers in Australia: Why do they stay? Peter R. Whipp 1  · Kasper Salin 2 Received: 30 October 2017 / Accepted: 6 March 2018 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Studies related to reasons why teachers stay are far less frequent than those reporting reasons to leave. This study assessed the factors that satisfed PE teachers and the motivators to stay in PE teaching. Physical educator stayers (N = 139) responded to a ‘PE Teachers’ Career Intentions Questionnaire’, ‘Basic Satisfaction Needs at Work Scale’ and an open-ended question to ascertain reten- tion motivators. Basic needs satisfaction for competence, autonomy and relatedness support, along with satisfaction for ‘professional interaction’, ‘participation in deci- sion-making’, ‘organisation of teaching’, and ‘respect’ predicted retention. PE teach- ers gain work-related motivation from their expertise, the opportunity to implement ideas collaboratively, but also the sense of efcacy to control their pedagogy and student outcomes of focus. Supportive policy and actions; not just the absence of career-thwarting stimuli, appear vital for teacher self-efcacy, leading to career ful- fllment. Quality mentoring programs may serve to enhance PE teacher satisfaction and are worthy of further investigation. Keywords Retention · Physical education · Teachers · Job satisfaction · Motivation 1 Introduction Teachers and schools, according to community expectation, have substantial responsibility for the development of young people (Dinham 1994). However, * Peter R. Whipp p.whipp@murdoch.edu.au 1 HPE Pedagogy, School of Education, Murdoch University, 90 South Street, Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia 2 Faculty of Sport & Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland