Teacher-trainees’ mathematics background in response to college tutors’ instructional strategies in mathematics

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of constructivism on teacher-trainees’ performance in mathematics at the colleges of education. A purposive sampling technique was used to select the Volta Region and three colleges of education from the region. Furthermore, a convenient sampling technique was adopted to select six hundred and forty-one (641) 2019/2020 third-year teacher-trainees from the three colleges. The instrument used for the collection of data was carefully developed and structured from reviewed literature to measure CA, IC, PUFM and CGI as basis to determine constructivism. The instrument was validated and found to be reliable when factor analysis was conducted using the principal component analysis method. The binomial test, descriptive statistics analysis and composite scores of the mean likert-scale response indicated that instructional coherence which supported constructivist theory of learning was mostly used among the studied instructional strategies by the college tutors to support teacher-trainees mathematics learning. The indication was that tutors’ use of instructional coherence instruction guaranteed constructivist theory which is a solid foundation to teacher-trainees’ performance in mathematics at the colleges of education. Finally, partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) results revealed that CGI had the highest path coefficient (𝛽 =-0.161) as the major construct affecting TTP and IC as the highest path model value of 𝛽 =0.302 affecting CONST.