A Perception Study of Motivation, Interpersonal Relationships and Performance of Teachers in Pre-tertiary Schools in Upper East Region of Ghana

Abstract

It has been realized that teachers who assume duty in schools either get motivated or de-motivated with time. The study titled ‘A Perception Study of Motivation, Interpersonal Relationships and Performance of Teachers in Pre-tertiary Schools in Upper East Region of Ghana’ sought to understand the effect that a good interpersonal relationship in schools has on teacher motivation and how to improve teacher motivation by the deployment of a model of interpersonal relationships in pre-tertiary schools to engender better teacher motivation for better teacher performance. A number of research designs were used, involving both quantitative and qualitative designs. A mixed method approach was employed to collect, process and analyse data. The study is majorly an exploratory research. The major findings were that teachers in the region were satisfied with their job (56.6%) but not motivated (83.5%). Poor teacher motivation corresponded with poor student achievement in both national and international standardized tests. The association between the degree of motivation and the socio-economic factors was found to be a power relationship. Interpersonal relationships provided the highest motivation to teachers at a mean responds rate of 76.2%. An interpersonal relationships model of teacher motivation was formulated through Grounded Theory approach thus: TM = kR + μ(f€)W. TM is teacher motivational level, R is the degree of interpersonal relationships in the school and f€ is the combined effect of the socio-economic factors available to the teacher. ‘k’, μ and ‘W’ are sociometric parameters. Improving interpersonal relationships in pre-tertiary schools could therefore bring about a higher degree of teacher motivation.