School Factors as Correlates of Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers’ Achievement in Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

Mathematics is bedrock for scientific and technological development. In recent times, the performance of pre-service mathematics teachers in the colleges of education in south western Nigeria has not been encouraging. This study, therefore, investigated availability of infrastructure, textual materials and instructional materials as correlates of pre-service mathematics teacher’s achievement in colleges of education in South-western Nigeria. This study is a survey design and Vygotsky’s social learning theory provided the framework. Five colleges of education were purposively selected. The college must be government-owned tertiary institution. Total enumeration was used to draw 511 final year pre-service mathematics teachers made up of 211 males and 300 females and 51 mathematics lecturers in the five colleges. Questionnaires were used to facilitate data collection and were analyzed using multiple regression analysis at 0.05 level of significance. There was significant joint contribution of the three variables on pre-service teachers’ achievement in Mathematics (F_(3,507) = 6.66; R=0.20) accounting for 3.2% of its variance. Instructional (? = 0.18, t = 3.31) and textual (? = 0.13, t = 2.58) materials predicted pre-service teachers’ achievement in Mathematics. Relevant instructional and textual materials were determinants of learner’s achievement in Mathematics in colleges of education in Southwestern Nigeria.