Perceptions of Elementary School Teachers about Effect of Physical and Emotional Violence on Students' Performance

Abstract

Physical and emotional violence has become a serious problem in schools. Teachers are important part of the whole education system, therefore, their insights into school violence are essential to understand the problem. This study aimed to investigate the teachers’ perceptions about the effect of physical and emotional violence on students’ academic performance. A causal-comparative research design based on a cross-sectional survey was used. A self-developed and validated questionnaire was used to measure the level of teachers’ perceptions about physical and emotional violence and its effect on students’ academic performance. The reliability index (Cronbach’s alpha) of the questionnaire was 0.92. All the teachers of the public high schools of Lahore city were the population of the study. A sample of 300 teachers was taken through simple random sampling technique. Data were analyzed by applying descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed that teachers thought that many practices related to emotional and physical violence had positive effects on students’ performance. Majority of the teachers responded that they had to use many of the practices in order to put students’ attention towards their learning which ultimately improved their performance. Result of correlation analysis also confirmed that teachers’ practices related to physical and emotional violence were positively associated with students’ academic performance. It was also found that the physical and emotional violence was a significant predictor of students’ academic performance. On the basis of these results, it is recommended that school education department should conduct seminars and training workshops to educate teachers about negative effects of violent practices they are using to improve students’ performance.
 Keywords: Emotional violence, physical violence, academic performance
 Physical and emotional violence has become a serious problem in schools. Teachers are important part of the whole education system, therefore, their insights into school violence are essential to understand the problem. This study aimed to investigate the teachers’ perceptions about the effect of physical and emotional violence on students’ academic performance. A causal-comparative research design based on a cross-sectional survey was used. A self-developed and validated questionnaire was used to measure the level of teachers’ perceptions about physical and emotional violence and its effect on students’ academic performance. The reliability index (Cronbach’s alpha) of the questionnaire was 0.92. All the teachers of the public high schools of Lahore city were the population of the study. A sample of 300 teachers was taken through simple random sampling technique. Data were analyzed by applying descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed that teachers thought that many practices related to emotional and physical violence had positive effects on students’ performance. Majority of the teachers responded that they had to use many of the practices in order to put students’ attention towards their learning which ultimately improved their performance. Result of correlation analysis also confirmed that teachers’ practices related to physical and emotional violence were positively associated with students’ academic performance. It was also found that the physical and emotional violence was a significant predictor of students’ academic performance. On the basis of these results, it is recommended that school education department should conduct seminars and training workshops to educate teachers about negative effects of violent practices they are using to improve students’ performance.