Influence of preservice accounting teachers’ personal values, motivation and commitment on their perceived effective teaching

Abstract

The study examined the influence of preservice Accounting teachers’ personal values, motivation and commitment on their perceived effective teaching of Financial Accounting at Senior High Schools (SHSs) in Ghana. The study employed descriptive cross-sectional survey design. The study population was all final year Accounting education students of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) and University of Education, Winneba (UEW) who were 130 and 257 respectively. The census method was used to include all the students. A questionnaire with multiple variables that have Cronbach Alpha indexes ranging from .887 to .961 was used to collect the data. The data were analysed using statistical tools such as mean, standard deviation, factorial MANOVA and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The study revealed that personal values, motivation and commitment was perceived to be high among preservice Accounting teachers. Also, the study found that preservice Accounting teachers did not differ in effective teaching in terms of gender, age and prior teaching experience. Personal values, motivation and commitment of preservice Accounting teachers combined are able to influence 52.8% of the teachers’ perceived teaching effectiveness. It is recommended to management of the universities through the Head of Departments in charge of the training of Accounting teachers to ensure that they initiate student-teacher mentorship programmes to help the trainee-teachers familiarise themselves and be socialised with the accepted values within the teaching profession consciously or unconsciously by modelling their mentors.