Effect of Teacher's Professionalism on Classroom Engagement and Quality of Teaching at Primary School Level

Abstract

Teaching is a vibrant profession, and teacher is the only one who transform dreams into reality. Teacher is the pivot of teaching profession. The Government of Punjab is concerned for grooming the entire society to face the challenges of the 21st century and enhancing the quality of education which is determined by the quality of teaching. Teachers' professionalism is proportional to the teachers' classroom engagement that would improve their quality of teaching. The present study aimed to find out the effect of primary school teachers' professionalism in their classroom engagement and quality of teaching. A Quantitative research approach, based on causal-comparative design was used by conducting a survey. The population comprised of teachers, working in public sector primary schools of province Punjab, Pakistan. Multistage sampling technique has been used to select the sample of the present study by considering 1230 teachers. The sample comprised of 1230 respondents; 589 male and 641 female teachers randomly selected from public sector primary schools. Three self-developed questionnaires were used for data collection: (a) Teachers' Professionalism Scale (TPS), (b) Teacher Classroom Engagement Scale (TCES), and (c) Quality of Teaching Scale (QTS). The validity of the instruments was determined through national and international experts' opinion and reliability was assured by calculating Cronbach's Alpha score of teachers‟ professionalism (.927), teachers‟ class room engagement (.914), and quality of teaching (.911). The data were analyzed by applying the descriptive and inferential statistics; regression, t-test, ANOVA, and structural equation modeling. Findings shows that teachers‟ professionalism had a positive and significant effect on teachers' classroom engagement and quality of teaching. So, the researcher concluded that each variable had its distinctive weight and worth which is useful for teaching and learning. It is recommended that teachers need to develop professional attitude and classroom engagement activities for quality teaching to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Teachers need to exercise quality teaching practices during a teaching-learning process in classrooms which is beneficial for primary school students to get quality education.