School-level Teacher Reward Practices and Quality of Students’ Academic Achievement in Secondary Schools in Masaka District, Uganda

Francis Xavier Lubega^1, , Gyaviira Musoke Genza² and Jessica Norah Aguti³

¹School of Education, College of Education and External Studies, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062 Kampala, Uganda

²Department of Foundations and Curriculum Studies, School of Education, College of Education and External Studies, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062 Kampala, Uganda

³Faculty of Science & Education, Busitema University, P.O. Box 236 Tororo, Uganda

Cite this paper:
Francis Xavier Lubega, Gyaviira Musoke Genza and Jessica Norah Aguti. School-level Teacher Reward Practices and Quality of Students’ Academic Achievement in Secondary Schools in Masaka District, Uganda. American Journal of Educational Research. 2022; 10(4):212-222. doi: 10.12691/education-10-4-9

Abstract

The difficulty of finding an appropriate teacher reward system which can sustainably promote quality education prompted the study from which this article arises. This article focuses on two objectives: i) to examine the relationship between prevalent school-level teacher reward practices and students’ academic performance and ii) to examine the relationship between prevalent school-level teacher reward practices and teachers’ ratings of students’ academic performance. Hinged on the philosophical paradigm of pragmatism, the study was conducted in 23 secondary schools through a cross-sectional concurrent mixed methods research design, over a sample of 368 participants, using stratified random and purposive sampling. Data collected using questionnaires, interviews and documentary review was analysed using themes, frequency distribution, and Chi-square test of independence. The study discovered that the practices of involving teachers in reward-related decision making and espousing performance-based reward programs as well as making effort to achieve attractive salaries promise to support teacher-facilitated learning. It was then concluded that improved remuneration mainly in form of higher and more prompt salaries as well as greater participation of teachers especially in the management of school-level reward-for-performance schemes can more effectively promote quality teaching leading to students’ gains in learning achievement. It was therefore recommended that reward managers at school level should cherish practices which, on the one hand, enable teachers to receive competitive and more prompt remuneration and, on the other hand, attach special value to teachers’ direct or representative participation in major decision making at least concerning merit-based rewards.

Keywords:
teachers students reward practices teacher motivation academic achievement performance

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