MEASURING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF TENTH-GRADERS IN PHYSICS

Abstract

Over the past years, there had been a constant decline in the results of Physics among public secondary school students in Pakistan due to various reasons including teacher effectiveness. The main purpose of this research was to measure the correlation between teacher effectiveness measured on 5 quality standards and secondary school learners’ achievement in physics. The researchers employed a quantitative, correlational research design to answer the research questions. Using stratified random sampling technique data was collected from a sample of 3,430 physics students of 10^th grade across 40 public secondary schools in District Lahore. The School Teacher Effectiveness Questionnaire (STEQ) with overall Cronbach Alpha α=.84 was used to collect student perception about their teacher and academic achievement was obtained from students' 9^th-grade Physics marks as awarded by the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE), Lahore. The data were analyzed by employing descriptive statistics, Pearson r, simple and multiple linear regression. The results showed strong, positive, and significant correlation (r = .754, p < .01) between teacher effectiveness and students; achievement in Physics. Moreover, regression analysis revealed that physics teacher effectiveness had a significant effect on student achievement in physics (r² = .568). These results supported the essential part of various factors of teacher effectiveness in boosting students’ success in Physics. It was recommended that there is a necessity to prioritize quality teaching through frequent evaluation and targeted professional development in science subjects where understanding of concepts is critical. Thus, strengthening teacher effectiveness is a key to reverse the trend of low learning outcome of students and equipping them with stronger scientific knowledge.