Factors affecting quality of schools in India: An interpretive structural modeling approach

Abstract

This paper investigates and models the factors that determine the quality dimension in appraising school performance in India. It also aims to identify the factors that affect the quality of school education and throw light on their nature, significance and mutual influences, using interpretive structural modeling (ISM). The interdependency and correlation of identified factors are done through Factor analysis. Bartlett’s test and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin approach are used to measure sampling adequacy and reliability analysis is done by using Cronbach’s Alpha index to measure the internal consistency. ISM demonstrates the interrelationships and the hierarchy of the factors. The results suggest that teacher motivation is the most influential factor influencing both teacher’s experience and class size, which in turn, are related to teacher qualification, transport facilities, curriculum, and teacher’s salary. MICMAC analysis is conducted to understand the interrelationships among the explored factors and classify them into autonomous, linkage, independent and dependent factors.