Female Students’ Participation in Mathematics Education at the University Level in Ghana (Published)
For more than three decades now, a great body of research studies have been conducted to address the issue of gender disparities in mathematics education across the globe as a result of the minimal participation of females in mathematics education in higher levels of education. The primary purpose of this study, however, was to investigate female students’ participation in mathematics education at the university level. It considered 99 female students’ studying mathematics education from the University of Cape Coast and the University of Education, Winneba. The study used descriptive survey design to analyse both qualitative and quantitative data gathered from respondents. The study revealed among other things that the trend of enrolment of female students’ in mathematics education is on the decline. Also, the study revealed that enjoyment derived from studying mathematics education, career opportunities in mathematics education, desire to study mathematics education, interest in mathematics education, were some of the reasons why female students participate in mathematics education. The assertion that mathematics is a male domain subject was not a perception of female mathematics education students who participated in this study. Conclusions, implications and recommendations are further discussed in the work.
Keywords: Mathematics Education, Participation, Perception, female students, university level
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING ALGEBRA: A COMPARISON OF GHANA AND THE US. (Published)
Ghanaians complain about falling standards of their students in mathematics and point, for instance, to the poor performance of their eighth graders in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) since 2003 when Ghana’s eighth graders began participating. Since student performance has been known to be related to teacher knowledge, this study was set up to investigate the knowledge base of senior high school teachers in Ghana for teaching algebra and compare it to that of their counterparts in the US. In all 339 and 3,841 of teachers in Ghana and US respectively agreed to participate in the study. Analysis of the performance of the two group indicated that the US teachers performed significantly better than their Ghanaian counterparts. Implications of this finding have been discussed. In addition, recommendations for practice and further research have also been provided.
Keywords: Assessment of teacher knowledge., Knowledge for teaching Algebra, Mathematics Education
MATHEMATICS EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: IMPLICATIONS TO THE PRODUCTION AND RETENTION OF MATHEMATICS TEACHERS IN NIGERIAN SCHOOLS (Published)
The paper is focused to examine the problems of the shortage of Mathematics teachers at all levels of the Nigerian educational system. The problem of the shortage of mathematics teachers is due to the poor condition of teachers in Nigeria. Students are not attracted to study the mathematical sciences and are rather attracted to more lucrative professions. Therefore, we have our best brains in other professions at the expense of the teaching profession. Shortage of mathematics teachers leads to poor performance of students and shortage of professionals in science and technology which results in low level of technological and sustainable development of the nation. To produce and retain mathematical sciences teachers, the paper recommends that action should be put in place to deliberately improve the salaries and conditions of service of teachers as done in some African Countries and Advanced Countries; arrangements should be made to retrain our unemployed graduates especially those in social sciences to convert them to mathematics teachers; Students wishing to study the mathematical sciences education should be awarded bursary to attract them to the courses; and specialist teachers should be employed to teach mathematics at the Primary School level.
Keywords: Mathematics Education, Production and Retention of Mathematics Teachers, Sustainable Development