Abstract:
It is acknowledged that teacher efficacy is associated with mathematical instructional
quality and student confidence. The purpose of this study was to examine the
influence of senior high school (SHS) mathematics teachers’ gender and teaching
experience on their self-efficacy in teaching mathematics in Ashanti Region of Ghana.
A 27-item questionnaire was given to a random sample of 154 Senior High School
mathematics teachers in 20 Senior High schools to respond. The result of the study
showed that the teachers’ efficacy level was high. Again, the result of the independent
sample t-test indicated that the male mathematics teachers have high self-efficacy
belief than the female counterparts. Once more, one-way ANOVA Test results with
respect to teacher teaching experience show that there was no statistically significant
difference between the means of the five groups of teacher teaching experience on
Mathematics teacher efficacy. There was also a fairly strong and positive correlation
between teachers’ perceived usefulness of mathematics and teacher efficacy in
teaching Mathematics. It is recommended that all mathematics teachers in general and
female Mathematics teachers in particular in the Ashanti Region should undergo
constant professional development programmes as it is seen as one of the most
important factors influencing teacher efficacy belief in teaching mathematics. It is
also suggested that further research should involve a test in content knowledge, so that
teachers can be assessed to confirm their confidence in content knowledge, rather than
allowing them to rate themselves without the actual test.
Description:
A Dissertation in the Department of Educational Leadership, Faculty of
Education and Communication Sciences, submitted to the School of Graduate
Studies, University of Education, Winneba in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for award of Master of Philosophy (Educational Leadership)
Degree.
AUGUST, 2016