Challenges Faced by Mathematics Education Student-Teachers During Macro-Teaching Practice

Abstract

It sounds contradictory when students who are being trained to teach go to the field and end up performing quite below standard despite all efforts put in place by the university to produce effective and productive teachers. The issue been raised is, what then becomes the fate of the students they are teaching in terms of performance? It is in this view that the current research was conducted to examine the challenges faced by mathematics education students during macroteaching. To achieve the objective of the study, a descriptive survey design was employed for the study. A sample size of 35 final year students offering Bachelor of Education (Mathematics) programme were selected using the simple random sampling technique. Questionnaires were used as the main instruments for data collection during the research process. Results from the study indicated that student-teachers encounter environmental, instructional and supervisory challenges. Environment challenges faced by these students include inadequate teaching and learning mathematics and difficulty in transport to the schools. Other challenges encountered, conclusions, recommendations as well as the implications of the findings are discussed in the work.