This study explored the factor structure and reliability of a new Health Behaviour Inventory (HBI) to assess the health behaviour of adults. Data in this study were collected from a total of 581 postgraduate students of the University of Cape Coast. The HBI was subjected to principal component factor analysis with Varimax (Kaiser Normalization). The Kaiser Meyer–Olkin measure was used to verify the sampling adequacy for the factor analysis, which yielded KMO of .808. This indicated that the sample size was adequate and factor analysis could be performed on the data set. Bartlett’s test of Sphericity (χ2 = 8133.626, p = 0.000) was significant for the sample. The analysis yielded six factors with robust reliabilities. The six factors were: alcohol intake, smoking, dietary behaviour, physical exercise, salt intake and weight management. With respect to the reliability of the instrument, the HBI items yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of .792 for the total scale. The exploratory factor analyses demonstrated good factor structure and internal consistency. However, since this is the first study to explore the HBI structure, the researchers recommended that further investigations into the psychometric properties (such as the predictive validity) of the instrument be carried out.

The study investigated the mediational effect of student teachers' motivational orientations on the relationship between prior performance and academic achievement. This cross-sectional correlation study employed a survey approach in the collection of quantitative data. Stratified and Systematic sampling approaches were used in selecting 500 student teachers for the study. The results indicated that students ranked extrinsic motivation, value for task or course materials, and selfefficacy for learning as high motivators for learning. The independent samples t-tests for differences in means of first-and second-year students' reported motivational orientations showed a statistically significant difference in their use of extrinsic motivation, control of learning beliefs, and task value as learning strategies. First-year students' reported means were higher than that of the second-year students. The results from the study, taken as a set, indicated that student teachers' motivational orientations significantly mediated the relationship between prior performance (entry aggregates) and academic achievement (GPA). Approximately 16.7% of the change in the effect of prior performance on academic achievement was due to the presence of the motivation variables. Overall, prior performance plus student teachers motivational orientations explained about 42% of the variations in their academic achievement.

This unique study, which was carried out in an area that seemed under researched, collected data from 100 female preservice teachers in a college of education in Ghana on the actual sources and protest-march of test anxiety among trainee teachers, considering the peculiar position teachers occupy in the learning chain. Data were collected by using an adapted version of the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) developed by Spielberger and Vagg. A key finding is that, external agents such as future job security tend to be the major source of trainees’ test anxiety, which is at variance with what literature seems to suggest that students who experience test anxiety tend to be the type of people who put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform well. The findings seem to suggest that, tests in themselves do not stimulate anxiety but the premium and how high the stakes are for the test, tend to kindle anxious moments for preservice teachers.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore how Junior High School (JHS) 1 students solve word-problems in Mathematics. A total of 112 JHS 1 students were purposively selected from 41 public basic schools in the Akatsi South District of Ghana. Interview guide and test items comprising questions on word-problems in Mathematics on “Fractions”, “Perimeter” and “Area” were used to collect data. Percentages and frequency distribution tables as well as descriptive statistics (mean, mode, median and standard deviations) were used for data analysis. It was found that most of the students were able to read the word-problems in Mathematics but a majority of them could not read the concept names correctly. It was also found that a majority of the students could not solve the word-problems in Mathematics (fractions, perimeter and area) correctly resulting in very low performance. It is recommended that the Institute of Education, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education in Ghana, should include problem-solving skills in Mathematics as a course in the curriculum of Colleges of Education in the country. The Institute of Education should collaborate with the Ghana Education Service to organize inservice training programmes for teachers to equip them with the skills and strategies needed to enforce the teaching and learning of Mathematics using problem-solving approach.