Gender Dimension in the Development of Effective Teaching Skills among University of Cape Coast (Ucc) Distance Education Students

Abstract

The study examined gender dimension in the development of effective teaching skills among distance education (DE) students. The conceptual framework for the study is gender mainstreaming which centres on pluralistic approach to diversity issues among both men and women. A longitudinal developmental research design was used for the study. A sample size of 376 distance education students made up of 173(46.01%) female and 203 (53.99%) male were purposefully selected from 5 regional study centres of College of Distance Education, University of Cape Coast (UCC) across Ghana. Data was collected using the Teaching Practice (Practicum) Assessment Form ‘A’ of UCC. The two research questions sought to find out the performance of male and female DE students on On-Centre Teaching Practice (OCTP) and School-Based Teaching Practice (SBTP) respectively. Five hypotheses were also formulated to guide the study. Results of the study revealed that the teaching skills acquired by both male and female DE students during OCTP and SBTP were good. However, a statistically significant difference exists between the teaching skills acquired by male and female DE students. Similarly, gender was found to have effect on the acquisition of teaching skills. It is recommended that all policy makers in the area of teaching practice should be mindful of gender issues in the development of teaching skills. Institutions involved in training teachers using distance education mode should stress the four levels of effective teaching skills assessed in this paper for meaningful practical teaching during teaching practice.