School Internal Factors and Teacher Effectiveness in Secondary Schools in Lira District, Uganda

Background: Teacher effectiveness is referred to as a teacher's ability to produce higher-than-expected gains in students' standardized test scores. Teachers are expected to become effective and display high job performance in terms of learners' academic achievement and growth. The quality of Education and learners' academic achievement in Lira district remains low which is an indicator of teacher ineffectiveness. It is upon this background that this study aimed to explore the effects of school internal factors on teacher effectiveness in secondary schools in Lira District, Uganda.

Methodology: A mixed research method was used in which 263 individuals were sampled using a correlational research design. A purposive sampling technique was used to identify head teachers, District Education Officer (DEO) and District Inspector of schools (DIS) while simple random sampling was used to identify teachers, members of the school Board of Governors (BOG) and Parent Teachers’ Associations (PTA). Both interviews and questionnaires were used for data collection. The relationship between the variables was determined using Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient (r) and qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis by identifying themes as they appear.

Results: The result showed a strong positive correlation between school internal factors and teacher effectiveness in secondary schools in Lira district (r= 0.751, P<0.05), implying that the school internal factors which are the predictor variables significantly account for the teacher effectiveness although they account for only 56% (R2 = 0.564, p<0.05). The qualitative interviews held with the head teachers, DEO, DIS and focused group discussions held with BOG and PTA also revealed that school internal factors influence teacher effectiveness.

Conclusion: The study revealed that there is a significant strong positive relationship between school internal factors and teacher effectiveness in secondary schools in Lira district. This implies that increasing or decreasing school internal factors in secondary schools results in a considerable increase or decrease in teacher effectiveness. Further studies should be done on other factors that might influence teacher effectiveness other than school internal factors alone and similar studies should be conducted in primary (elementary) schools and higher institutions of learning.