Phase 2: Overview and methodology
Stay, Please: Phase 2 had two major goals: Defining the key factors impacting attrition and retention, and understanding how different roles in practice experience those factors. Here’s how that data was collected.
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Phase 2
In the original survey, we purposely did not define the factors, allowing respondents to select the terms that were most meaningful to them (in whatever way they defined them).
Phase 2 of Stay Please, which took place in spring 2024, had two main objectives:
First, we wanted to define those nine factors and use the survey responses to determine whether various roles in a practice tended to choose the same definition(s).
Second, we aimed to see how a veterinary professional’s expectations going into the profession matched with their current reality in clinical practice—and, like with the definitions, gain some insight into how that expectation vs. reality score might vary by role.
From a list of five or six potential definitions, respondents selected the one that best matched their understanding of each factor.
They were then asked to rate how their reality matched up to their expectations using the following scale:
- 5 – Much better than expected
- 4 – Somewhat better than expected
- 3 – About as expected
- 2 – Somewhat worse than expected
- 1 – Much worse than expected
This rating system means that scores close to 3 or higher are considered positive, while scores below 3 indicate a disconnect between what these professionals expected their jobs to be like and what they actual experience each day in clinical practice.
