Dr. Paul Kwame Butakor of the Department of Teacher Education of the College of Education has delivered a lecture on ‘Using Structural Equation Modeling to Examine Predictors of Teachers’ Work Engagement in Ghana’ as part of the Department’s seminar series.
Dr. Butakor making a point during the lecture
Dr. Butakor noted that the role and engagement of teachers has been an issue of interest to educational researchers in Ghana, particularly following the abysmal performance of students in national examinations. It is widely established that, the more teachers are actively engaged in teaching and learning environment, the better the performance of students.
Cross section of audience
Dr. Butakor furnished the audience with his research findings, which showed that job satisfaction mediated the relationship between teachers’ emotional intelligence and work engagement. The findings also revealed that emotional intelligence positively affected professional identity directly and indirectly through job satisfaction. His research also showed that female teachers generally exhibited more positive professional identity as expressed by their sense of belongingness and vision for career progression, and are more satisfied with their work than their male colleagues.
Question time
Dr. Butakor recommended that for Ghanaian teachers to be actively engaged with their jobs, authorities should have a second look at ways of improving the satisfaction of teachers as well as provide opportunities for development and improvement of teacher’s emotional intelligence, which could be done by including a module of emotional intelligence in the curriculum for pre-service training for teachers. The seminar was chaired by Dr. Ernest Ampadu, Acting Head of the Department of Teacher Education, and was well attended by faculty and students.