This paper explored pre-service teachers’ perceptions and knowledge of trigonometric concepts. Convenience sampling technique was used to select a sample of 119 (25 females, 94 males) second year science/mathematics pre-service teachers from two Colleges of Education in the Northern Region of Ghana. Trigonometry Perception Questionnaire (TPQ) and Trigonometry Assessment Test (TAT) were used to collect data on pre-service teachers’ perceptions and conceptual knowledge of trigonometry. Data were coded and keyed into Statistical Package for Service Solutions (SPSS version 20) and analysed using descriptive statistics. The results suggested that pre-service teachers perceived trigonometry as abstract, difficult and boring to learn; and had limited conceptual knowledge of basic trigonometric concepts. Consequently, more that 50% of them were unable to construct and reconstruct the appropriate mental structures for meaningful understanding to enable them respond to important basic trigonometry tasks. To achieve quality mathematics education, teacher educators must change their instructional practice and teach for understanding.  Since understanding is the key to teacher’s instructional actions, processes and knowledge, we recommend teaching trigonometry for understanding during teacher preparation.

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The purpose of this Ex Post facto study was to investigate the difference in mathematics achievement between male and female learners offering Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) by distance at the Institute for Distance and e-Learning (IDeL), University of Education, Winneba (UEW). Three consecutive year cohort groups (i.e. 2015, 2016 and 2017) of DBE distance learners were purposively selected from all the forty distance education centers of IDeL-UEW. There were 6,468, 3,483 and 3,276 learners in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 year groups respectively. This gave a sample size of 13,227 distance learners for the study. The End-of-semester mathematics examinations grades of the learners in Math I and Math II were retrieved from the UEW-IDeL registry and analysed comparatively using Chi-Square tests. Generally, the results show a below average performance in mathematics for both genders. However, there were statistically significant differences in the achievement of Mathematics between male and female distance learners in each of the three years with the males attaining higher grades than their female counterparts. It is recommended that teacher education institutions engaged in distance programmes should pay special attention to the gender gap in mathematics achievement and adopt strategies to motivate them to pursue the subject.