Teachers’ understanding and practice of classroom discipline principles in Garu and Tempane Districts

Abstract

Teachers are by statutes and board regulations in a unique way charged with the direct responsibility for maintaining order in schools. Quite often, teachers use strategies that tend to give more power to themselves such as rules, regulations, punishment and rewards, to maintain order to the exclusion of students’ own efforts such as, students’ learning to self regulate their behaviour based on their own experiences. The study investigated teachers’ understanding and practice of classroom discipline principles in basic schools in the Garu and Tempane districts. The study employed a quantitative descriptive survey design. Seventeen (17) female teacher respondents were purposively selected, while simple random sampling techniques were used to select forty-three (43) male teachers. Data were collected using a self- designed questionnaire. The data were subjected to frequency and percentage analysis to address all the three research questions. Based on the analysis, the study revealed that majority of teachers’ understood classroom discipline in behavioural terms (i.e, the imposition of external controls to compel students to put up the desired behaviour). Specifically, teachers tended to use classroom rules and regulations as their major means of ensuring discipline in class. Again, teachers’ seemed to employ more behaviourist principles to a larger extent than constructivist principles. The overall findings were, therefore, that teachers’ understand and practice classroom discipline from the behaviourist point of view. It is suggested that the Ministry of Education, the Ghana Education Service and the District directorate of education should organise in-service courses to sensitise teachers about the efficacy and application of constructivist concepts and principles of classroom discipline.