Impact of Professional Development Programmes on Teachers’ Knowledge and Academic Performance of Senior High School Students in Ghana
Impact of Professional Development Programmes on Teachers’ Knowledge and Academic Performance of Senior High School Students in Ghana
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Date
2022
Authors
Owusu-Osei, Benedict
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Publisher
European Journal of Education and Pedagogy
Abstract
To improve educational outcomes through improvements in teaching
standards, the Ministry of Education has stepped up efforts aimed at
providing continuous and lifelong learning among Ghanaian teachers.
However, the impact of the recent emphasis on a comprehensive
framework for the professional development of teachers on teaching and
learning outcomes has not been adequately studied. Despite the growing
body of literature suggesting that professional development and
professional knowledge may be associated with student outcomes, these
relationships remain an open question. This study, therefore, sought to
determine the impact of teachers’ professional development on academic
performance in senior high schools in Ghana and the mediating role of
teachers’ professional knowledge. A survey was conducted, and valid
questionnaires were retrieved from 4,102 teachers in selected public
senior high schools from four regions (including 77 districts and 97 public
senior high schools) across the Southern, Middle, and Northern belts of
Ghana. The results of the study showed that professional development has
a significant positive relationship with professional knowledge (γ = 0.26, p
< 0.001). Also, professional development and professional knowledge were
positively related to academic performance (γ = 0.08, p < 0.001) and (γ =
0.04, p < 0.001) respectively. Finally, the results of the study showed that
professional knowledge partially mediated the relationship between
professional development and academic performance. The study,
therefore, concluded that professional development leads to
improvements in the academic performance of students through
improvements in teachers’ professional knowledge and other
characteristics of teachers that were not accounted for by this study.
Among other things, the study recommends that teachers should be
encouraged to engage in diverse professional development activities that
respond to the inadequacies in their professional competencies.
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Impact of Professional Development Programmes on Teachers’ Knowledge and Academic Performance of Senior High School Students in Ghana