Freedom to Choose within Limits: Teacher Autonomy from the Perspectives of Basic School Teachers in Ghana

Abstract

The study examined the level of autonomy among basic school teachers in the Central Region of Ghana and the effect of teacher demographic characteristics on the level of teacher autonomy. The explanatory sequential design was adopted. Using the systematic sampling technique, a total of 315 basic school teachers were sampled for the quantitative phase of the study whilst 12 teachers were sampled for the qualitative phase through the purposive sampling technique. Eighteen (18) Likert-scale items were adapted from Pearson and Hall and used for the quantitative phase. A semi-structured interview guide was designed to collect data to further elaborate on the study's key findings. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data whilst the interview was analysed thematically. The study revealed that teachers in the Central Region of Ghana hold positive perceptions about their autonomy with the level of autonomy being moderate. It further established that teacher autonomy is affected by gender positively whilst age and teaching experience affects their level of autonomy negatively. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the Ghana Education Service (GES) and school heads should organize in-service programmes aimed at informing basic school teachers on the extent of autonomy that they have in the process of implementing the curriculum.

The Examination of the Relationship Between Teacher Autonomy and Teacher Leadership through Structural Equation Modeling

“…It can be asserted that teachers have a high sense of autonomy even when they experience frustration from different sources (Einolf, 2002;Rudolf, 2006). While some studies on teacher autonomy yielded that the teachers had a moderate level of autonomy perception (Çolak & Altınkurt 2017;Dampson et al, 2019), some others reported a high level of autonomy perception (Salokangas et al, 2020;Yorulmaz et al, 2018). The divergent results of the studies may be related to the factors such as school climate, school culture, administrative approach, the processes of teacher training and development.…”