Towards effective teaching: Examining the factors that affect mathematics teachers in Ghana

This study sought to investigate the factors that affect teaching of mathematics. Records of pre-service teachers’ grades in the methods of teaching mathematics course from the school in which the study was done were taken. An observation was conducted on the teaching practices of 40 pre-service teachers at their school of practice. A questionnaire which sort to find the view of 4 mathematics tutors and 40 mentors at the basic schools on the preparation given to pre-service teachers at the college was administered. The questionnaires also sort to find out respondents’ view on the effectiveness of some college learning activities to the development of PCK in the pre-service teacher. The data collected was basically quantitative and was analyzed using measures of central tendencies with the help of SPSS. It was found out that pre-service teachers’ background in the methodology course prior to the start of internship (off-campus teaching practice) is just average. This is because the college classroom learning environment mostly develops in the pre-service teacher, subject matter knowledge, and this is carried unto their practicing classrooms where they demonstrate subject matter knowledge as well. The organization of teaching practice, in or off-campus, is not very effective and this contributes to the fact that preparation of pre-service teachers towards the development of PCK is not adequate. Finally, it was concluded that when the college curriculum is structured to incorporate more practical work, mathematics course will achieve its target of developing pre-service teachers’ PCK