Date of Award

2024

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Master of Philosophy in Education (MPhil Ed.)

First Advisor

Dr Sadia Muzaffar Bhutta

Department

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

Abstract

The constant changes in education bring new challenges and expectations on teachers’ work. These changes possess implications to rethink teaching as teachers play a pivotal role in achieving the educational agenda for the 21st century. In such situations, teacher agency becomes a decisive factor in determining how teachers are adapting to those changes to fulfil their professional agenda. The volume of recent publications on teacher agency in various contexts has underscored its scope. However, there are very few and inconclusive findings from Pakistan regarding teacher agency. Considering this gap, this study aimed to investigate the perceived views of schoolteachers about their level of agency across the system (public and private), gender (male and female), and career-phases (early-career, mid-career, and late-career) in educational context of Karachi. 
The study employed cross-sectional survey. The data was gathered using 5-point Likert scale, Teacher Ecological Agency (TEA), adapted for this study. The study used multi-stage cluster sampling to collect data from public (n= 15) and private (n= 11) schools. The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential analysis statistics (Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis).
The result revealed that teachers reported high level of agency across system, gender, and career-phases. More specifically the findings revealed no significant difference between public and private school teachers (p > 0.05). However, female teachers claimed to have high level of agency than male counterparts (p< 0.01; r = -0.20). The difference across three career-phases was also significant with mid-career teachers having an edge over early and late career teachers, with small magnitude of effect (p < 0.05; η2 = 0.02). The dimension wise result in each variable demonstrated a similar trend of scoring. Teachers scored relatively high in projective dimension followed by practical-evaluative and least in iterative dimension. The results have revealed that personal profile (gender and career-phase) is determinant of teacher agency while system of school does not significantly determine teacher agency in context of Karachi.
The results of current study are important as they provide a scan of teachers’ agency at this point of time in the context of Karachi (Pakistan). This study also establishes a base for studying teacher agency for future researchers to deepen their understanding in the emergent concept of teacher agency. The study provides some recommendations for policy and practice to organize need and gender sensitive professional development workshops, engage teachers in reflections and decision-makings.

First Page

1

Last Page

154

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