Abstract:
The thrust of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the preservice
Economics teacher education programme of the Department of Arts
and Social Sciences Education, UCC from the viewpoint of Economics
teacher-trainees. The study used the modalities, as prescribed by the
Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) theory and 54 Economics teacher
trainees who were in their final year of study (2015/2016 academic year) to
address the purpose of this study. Questionnaire and semi interview guide
were used as data collection instruments to elicit the background information
of the respondents, as well as relevant datato answer the research questions.
Descriptive and inferential statistics, the IPA model and thematic analysis
were used to analyze the data gathered.It was found that the Economics
teacher-trainees perceived the B.Ed. Social Sciences (Economics) programme
to be effective inaddressing certain aspects of the programmeand not effective
in addressing other aspects. Again, it was found that the perception aboutthe
programme’s effectiveness as reported by Economics teacher-trainees
studying Economics education with different minor subjects was the same. It
was therefore recommended that, the Department of Arts and Social Sciences
Education should consolidate effort in the areas where it has been shown that
it has strength and pay attention to those aspects found in the ‘concentrate
here’ quadrant of the IPA grid.
