Rapid societal and technological changes as well as student heterogeneity and individual needs shape work and skill requirements of Finnish vocational education and training (VET) teachers (e.g., Vilppola et al., 2022); thus, underlining the need to study VET teacher competence and its development. Competence of (VET) teachers has been a topic of growing interest in the previous European research, including Finland (e.g., Antera, 2023; Lehtonen et al., 2018; Sartori et al., 2015). Prior research (Antera, 2023; Sartori et al., 2015; Tapani & Salonen, 2019) has adopted four competence domains which are argued to respond to the diverse competence needs of VET teachers: pedagogical domain (e.g., teaching methods, setting up a safe learning environment, assessment, being familiar with the curricula and qualifications), professional domain (e.g., professional know-how; understanding the codes, statutes and methods of one’s discipline), organisational domain (e.g., economic and administrative know-how) as well as developmental and research domain (e.g., development of occupational practice, self-reflection of teaching practice). While these domains are based on a broad set of literature, they lack quantitative evidence from the teacher perspective which this study aims to provide. 

Previous research has also shown that the work environment is pivotal in providing organisational support for teachers’ everyday continuous professional development (Ballangrud & Nilsen, 2021; Kyndt et al., 2016). Such support may range from offering working hours and opportunities for individual and collective reflection to more formal events, such as teachers’ work placements; at any case, the work environment is the context for VET teachers’ professional development (Ballangrud & Nilsen, 2021). However, we lack the studies examining detailed patterns between VET teachers’ competence and organisational support for competence development, and how gaps between them are related to teachers’ work engagement and turnover intentions. In this study, we assume that organisational support gaps for professional development may decrease teachers’ work engagement, reflected in lower vigour, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli et al., 2019), and increase their intentions to leave their workplace or teaching as a profession (Huhtala & Feldt, 2016). 

This study aims to investigate how Finnish VET teachers perceive their current level of various competencies and organisational support for competence development. The study also aims to examine how the gap between the organisational support and self-assessed levels of competencies is associated with teacher engagement and, ultimately, turnover intentions. The research questions are as follows: 

RQ1) How do Finnish vocational teachers perceive the organisational support for their competence development? 

RQ2) How do the teachers perceive that organisational support for competence development contributes to their levels of work engagement and turnover intentions? 

Research context The data collection was conducted in collaboration with several Finnish vocational institutions across different regions. The research permission procedures of each participating institution were followed, but ultimately, participation in the survey by each vocational teacher was voluntary. Participants were asked for an informed consent and did not receive any incentives. Sample and measures Data were collected between August and October 2025 with an online survey questionnaire. Altogether N = 1,015 VET teachers participated in the study. There were 525 females (51.7%) and 454 males (44.7%). There were 36 participants (3.5%) who chose the option ‘other’ or did not want to declare their gender. Participants’ mean age was 51.6 years (SD = 7.9; range: 27–64 years). Participants’ levels of individual competencies and their perceptions of organisational support for competence development were measured with a new instrument which included 23 items that were presented twice to the participants: first to measure participants’ current level of competencies and secondly to measure the level of organisational support for competence development. Participants’ work engagement was measured with the UWES-3 scale which measured levels of vigour, dedication and absorption with three items (Schaufeli et al., 2019). The afore-mentioned items were rated on a Likert 1–7 scale. Participants’ turnover-intentions regarding the workplace and teaching profession were measured with two individual items (Huhtala & Feldt, 2016). These items were rated on a Likert 1–5 scale. Data analysis The data were analysed in RStudio using the lavaan package (Rosseel, 2012). First, the dataset was split randomly into two halves to run exploratory factor analysis (EFA) for the first half and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for the second half; thus, modelling and confirming the theory-driven structure of four VET teacher competence domains. The final model consisted of 19 items in four dimensions/competence domains. Second, 19 competence support gap variables allocated in four dimensions were calculated by subtracting the perceived levels of organisational support from the perceived levels of competencies. The whole cross-sectional dataset was used in structural equation modelling (SEM) to investigate whether the competence support gaps are associated with teachers’ turnover intentions via work engagement.

The EFA-CFA results imply that VET teacher competence consists of the following four domains of which the developmental and professional domain had the highest support gap (M = 1.1, SD = 1.2), followed by assessment (M = .8, SD = 1.2), teaching (M = .6, SD = 1.0) and organisational domain (M = .2, SD = 1.2). Furthermore, the fit indices of the standardised SEM model with maximum likelihood estimation and bootstrapped standard errors implied excellent fit with the data (χ2(230) = 794.184, p < .001; CFI = .966; TLI = .959; RMSEA = .049, 90 % CI [.045, .053]; SRMR = .041). None of the support gaps were statistically significantly associated with teacher work engagement. Intentions to leave the workplace were associated with teaching support gap (β = .305, p < .001) and work engagement (β = –.365, p < .001). Intentions to leave the teaching profession was associated with teaching support gap (β = .213, p = .006), assessment gap (β = –.133, p = .042) and work engagement (β = –.409, p < .001). The preliminary results seem to imply that teachers' reasons for leaving the workplace or the teaching profession seem to be related to organisational support for teaching competence. Also, consistent with previous research (Hakanen et al., 2006) we found that lower levels of work engagement are associated with stronger turnover intentions, underscoring the central role of engagement in supporting teachers’ retention and commitment. However, associations between developmental and professional, assessment and organisational domains and turnover intentions remained statistically non-significant which calls for future research to examine these interconnections, including other European countries and comparative approaches. Overall, the study underscores the need for Finnish VET institutions to implement strategies that enable and enhance teachers’ competence development throughout their careers.

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