Abstract:
The study examined pre-service accounting teachers’ level of self-efficacy in teaching cost accounting at the pre-tertiary level. It employed the descriptive cross-sectional survey design involving final year pre-service accounting teachers at the University of Cape Coast. An adapted questionnaire hereby referred to as Teacher Self-Efficacy and Mastery Experience Scale (TSEMES) was used to gather relevant data complemented by the academic records of the respondents to address the problem. The return rate of the instrument was 93%. Descriptive (frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (simple linear regression and independent samples t-test) were used to analyse the data. The study found out that, pre-service accounting teachers were highly efficacious in classroom management as compared to student engagement and instructional practices. Also, mastery experience had positive influence on pre-service accounting teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching cost accounting while prior-teaching experience did not have statistically significant influence on the self-efficacy of pre-service accounting teachers in teaching cost accounting. It was, therefore, recommended that accounting teacher educators should pay more attention to competencies related to instructional strategies and student engagement by engaging more with the pre-service accounting teachers in these areas. In the deployment of teachers, the Ghana Education Service should give priority to pre-service accounting teachers with higher academic achievement. Finally, prior teaching experience should not form the basis for assigning higher tasks.
