Teachers’ Perception of Professional Ethics and Its Impact on Their Professionalism

Abstract

This study was aimed at investigating teachers’ perception of professional ethics and its impact on their professionalism. Four districts from each of two zones, namely, Gamo and South Omo were selected using lottery methods. One primary school and one secondary school were selected using lottery method and further, teachers from the selected schools were taken totally using convenient sampling. To get as dependable data as possible, the study involved a mix of qualitative and quantitative approach. A questionnaire, which was developed by the investigators, was used after carrying out pilot study. To see how teachers perceive their codes of professional ethics, qualitatively gathered data was analyzed through description, frequency tables and histograms. To see the role teachers’ perception of their code of professional ethics in their professionalism, linear regressions was used. To investigate whether teachers’ sex modify the relationship between their perception of professional ethics and professionalism, an independent sample t-test was used. The result has indicated that many teachers perceive that they are fully compliant to the professional ethics, and they thought that their obedience to professional ethics has resulted from their conscience. Besides, the result has given us that for teachers’ who attribute the source of their professional ethical stand to moral responsibility, their professionalism was found to be significantly affected by their perception. An independent sample t-test has shown us that teachers’ there was no significant gender difference in professional ethical stand. Similarly, it has been revealed that there is no significant difference in perception of professional ethics between teachers of primary and secondary schools.