Effect of Teacher Professional Conduct on Students’ Learning Outcomes in Public Secondary School in Rwanda

Abstract

The professionalism of teachers plays a significant role in the promotion of students’ learning outcomes and quality of education.  Thus, the purpose of this paper was to assess the effect of teacher professional conduct on students’ learning outcomes in public secondary school in Gakenke district, Rwanda. Correlation research design was adopted. The target population was 324. A simple random sampling and convenient sampling techniques were used to get a sample size of 179 respondents. Questionnaires and interview guide were used as data collection instruments. IBM SPSS version 21 assisted in management of quantitative data and thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative findings. The findings revealed that 30.8% of respondents indicated there is an effective communication among teachers. It was also found that punctuality is one of the factors associated with teacher’ professional conduct. The study found that 38.6% of the respondents indicated there is an improved discipline among students in selected public secondary schools. The R Square was found to be .401 which means that the variables that make teacher professional conduct are able to affect the learning outcomes of students in public secondary schools at the level of 40.1% and the remaining 59.9% can be affected by other variables. It was reported there is a statistical significance high degree of positive relationship between teacher teachers’ professional conduct and students’ learning outcomes in public secondary schools in Gakenke district. The P-value = .000 which is less than 0.01 as the level of significance and Pearson coefficient of correlation r = .634 which is high. This paper recommends that the Ministry of Education should strength the aspect of teacher professional development for the purpose of promoting their professionalism and the level of students learning outcomes. Keywords: Students’ leaning outcome, Professional development, Teachers’ professional conduct and public secondary school.