The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has brought another dimension to teaching and learning across the levels of education. The lockdown imposed in many countries to curtail the pandemic forced many institutions of learning to shift to the online mode of teaching and learning. Using a descriptive survey research design, this study explored the online learning experiences of pre-service teachers at a Ghanaian university during the COVID-19 lockdown. The study focused on the pre-service teachers’ preparedness for online learning in terms of their digital literacy and technological devices used for online learning, their positive online learning experiences, and the challenges they encountered learning online. The findings suggested that the pre-service teachers were digitally literate and mostly accessed online learning using smartphones. Besides, online learning enabled them to communicate and collaborate actively with their course mates and lecturers. It was found that the flexibility of online learning increased the students’ motivation to learn. However, poor internet connectivity, the high cost of data, erratic power supply, lack of appropriate devices, inability to effectively manage their time, and family interruptions were some of the challenges experienced by the pre-service teachers.
This paper reports on a study conducted to explore senior high school mathematics teachers’ use of School-Based Assessment (SBA) guidelines and test scores in the Cape Coast Metropolis in Ghana. A total of 110 educators comprising 100 male and 10 female mathematics teachers participated in the study. A questionnaire and an interview schedule were used to collect data for the study and descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data.*- Findings revealed that mathematics teachers in senior high schools in the Cape Coast Metropolis do not follow the School-Based Assessment guidelines on principles of testing in the construction of teacher-made or classroom tests. Very few respondents reported that students’ test scores were used to identify strengths and weaknesses and for remedial teaching. The majority of the respondents still practise the old continuous assessment in which students’ assessment scores were used mainly for promotion/selection, awarding of prizes/ranking, record keeping, providing feedback to parents, generating score for the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), and preparing students for examination. This is because they do not understand the SBA guidelines. Based on the above findings, it was recommended that the Ghana Education Service should facilitate regular in-service training in testing practices for senior high school mathematics teachers in the Metropolis.
A total of 3,342 eleventh graders from 10 public Senior High Schools were engaged in an investigation of the nature of motivation for the learning of mathematics in the Cape Coast Metropolis of Ghana. The Likert survey revealed both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, while in the interview students mainly provided extrinsic motivation explanations. Although motivation and caning seems a contradiction in terms, unfortunately, it is a style of motivation experienced by some students in the context of this study. Specifically, the interviewed students mentioned fear of corporal punishment as the most important demotivating issue and high stake national examination results remain the impetus for the learning of mathematics in Ghana. The respondents bemoaned the effects of corporal punishment upon their learning of mathematics and its implications for their capacity to benefit from school were expressed.
This study aimed to examine the attitudes of Ghanaian student nurses towards mathematics. A sample of 301 undergraduate nursing students at a university in Ghana, selected through census sampling techniques from the first to the third-year students, participated in the study. Data was collected using a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study revealed that the students’ attitudes towards mathematics are determined by the value they attach to mathematics and their interest in mathematics. At α=0.01, Spearman's rho correlation coefficient of rs = 0.619 was significant. This indicates that the more value the student nurses attach to mathematics learning, the more interest they will likely have in learning the subject. The coefficient of determination (R2=38%), indicates that the students’ value for mathematics accounts for 38% of the variability in their interest in mathematics.
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