THE INFLUENCE OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES ON THEIR SELF-EFFICACY IN TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN THE ASHANTI REGION OF GHANA

ABSTRACT

It is acknowledged that teacher efficacy is associated with mathematical instructional quality and student confidence. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of senior high school (SHS) mathematics teachers’ gender and teaching experience on their self-efficacy in teaching mathematics in Ashanti Region of Ghana. A 27-item questionnaire was given to a random sample of 154 Senior High School mathematics teachers in 20 Senior High schools to respond. The result of the study showed that the teachers’ efficacy level was high. Again, the result of the independent sample t-test indicated that the male mathematics teachers have high self-efficacy belief than the female counterparts. Once more, one-way ANOVA Test results with respect to teacher teaching experience show that there was no statistically significant difference between the means of the five groups of teacher teaching experience on Mathematics teacher efficacy. There was also a fairly strong and positive correlation between teachers’ perceived usefulness of mathematics and teacher efficacy in teaching Mathematics. It is recommended that all mathematics teachers in general and female Mathematics teachers in particular in the Ashanti Region should undergo constant professional development programmes as it is seen as one of the most important factors influencing teacher efficacy belief in teaching mathematics. It is also suggested that further research should involve a test in content knowledge, so that teachers can be assessed to confirm their confidence in content knowledge, rather than allowing them to rate themselves without the actual test.