Students’ and teachers’ challenges in teaching and learning mathematics in large classes in the Tema Central Municipality

Abstract

his study investigated senior high school students and teachers challenges in teaching and learning Mathematics in large classes as well as teachers‘ frequent use of effective large class size instructional techniques in Tema central municipality. To achieve this,199 students as well as 48 Mathematics teachers were purposively sampled from four (4) public senior high schools in Tema Central municipality. The explanatory sequential design was employed as the research design. For the quantitative part, questionnaires were used to collect data from the students and teachers. Also, simple random sampling was used to select twenty (20) mathematics teachers out of the 48 teachers and interviewed for the qualitative part. The findings from the study showed that Mathematics teachers in Tema Central Municipality had classes above 40 as 90% of the mathematics teachers taught in schools whose STR exceeded the Ministry of Education‘s STR of 40:1. From the findings, the three topmost challenges encountered by teachers were increasing stress on teachers, difficulties in students control and class size affecting students‘ academic performance with means rating from 4.98, 4.93 and 4.89 respectively. Students also encounter challenges such as distractions by unserious students, lot of noise making and teachers spending more time controlling students rather than teaching with mean rating of 4.99, 4.99 and 4.91 respectively. In dealing with these challenges, Mathematics teachers in Tema Central municipality has devised effective large-class instructional techniques in teaching including activity-based instruction (mean frequency of use 4.82) and varying questioning techniques to engage students‘ participation (mean frequency of use 3.92). The implication for these findings is the need for more classrooms to be built by the government and Ministry of Education ensuring that enrolment in senior high schools is reduced to the required number by GES to maintain the STR to 40:1, and also organizing workshops to train mathematics teachers in the use of effective large class instructional techniques.