College of Education

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    2024 Symposium on African Digital Humanities: Digital Humanities, African Stories, and Agency
    (2024-02-15) Darkwah, A.; Ocloo, P.E.D.; Opoku-Agyemang, K.; Rosenblum, B.; Yeku, J.
    The symposium particularly welcomes graduate students and early-career faculty interested in digital humanities and will provide stipends for graduate students in the region to attend. The 2024 symposium seeks to stimulate a dialogue that addresses the intersections of the digital humanities and African stories and agency. We will explore digital storytelling and its connections to African narratives, the extractive politics of platform, AI and African agency, as well as diverse approaches and issues related to building an inclusive digital cultural record for local and global communities.
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    Stressors and Coping Strategies: The case of Teacher Education Students at University of Ghana
    (University of Ghana, 2020-02-26) Amponsah, K.D.; Ampadu, E.
    This research examined the stressors that teacher education students of the University of Ghana usually encounter and the coping stratagems that they frequently embrace. Random sampling technique was employed to select 270 second- and third-year undergraduate students in 2018/2019 academic year to answer a survey questionnaire with closed-ended and open-ended questions. Dental Environmental Stress (DES) questionnaire on stressors was adapted whereas coping stratagems that might be utilised by students to minimise stress was measured using an adapted form of the Brief COPE. The outcomes of the research revealed that ‘working to meet scholastic requirements’, ‘inadequate supply of power and water in halls’, and ‘changes in eating and sleeping habits’, were three major stressors experienced by teacher education students. Furthermore, learners utilised numerous approaches, such as praying or meditating, and self-diverting actions as coping strategies. Learners also used more adaptive coping strategies, than maladaptive and avoidance coping strategies. Overall, resident students were found to be more stressed than non-resident students. Again, this study revealed that resident students are more prayerful and easily get help and advice from lecturers or teaching assistants but deeply averse with substance abuse such as using tobacco/ alcohol/ drug to feel better compared with their non-resident counterparts. It was recommended that the Department of Teacher Education should establish a counselling centre to assign academic counsellors to learners and organise frequent stress management programmes for them.
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    Plagiarism: Knowing and It
    (2018-11-21) Amponsah, S.; Butakor, P.K.
    Issues of plagiarism date back to many centuries and have had a toll on academics and professionals all over the world. People may fall to plagiarism intentionally or unintentionally and there is always a price to pay for a person’s actions or inactions. Myriads of excuses have often been assigned by plagiarists. There is, however, no excuse for plagiarism as offenders risk sullying their academic reputations or being surcharged or both. Given this background, it becomes imperative that as academics, we get a thorough understanding of what constitutes plagiarism or otherwise in our academic writings. This presentation on plagiarism aims at delving into the roots of plagiarism, its types and how to avoid it through manual or technological means.
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    Technology-Mediated Faculty-Student Interactions among Ghanaian University Students
    (2018-04-25) Boateng, J.K.
    Perceptions of students in Ghana about their interactions with instructors in Ghanaian university setting were explored. The study was based on the argument that, lack and very few available computers as well as poor students’ computer competences are among the prime reasons why instructors would avoid employing the use of information communication technology (ICT) in pursuance of teaching and learning in higher education in Africa. The success of computer-based learning would therefore require students’ input. We used a survey (sample size=77) and focus group discussion (sample size=6) to obtain students’ perception on student-instructor interactions in a graduate research methods class in Ghana. The mediums of interaction used in the course were (1) a learning management system (Sakai), (2) email, and (3) social media (Facebook). Results from a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed that the main constituents of students’ perception and preference on student-instructor interactions were (1) perceived utility of course management system and ease of use; (2) perceived importance of social media and convenient access to instructor; and (3) perceived efficacy of the role of course multi-media and timely receipt of course information.
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    The influence of Senior High School Student Factors and Teacher-Student Interaction on Student Performance in Mathematics in the Cape Coast Metropolis
    (2018-03-21) Awoniyi, F.; Ampadu, E.
    A total of 3,342 eleventh graders of 69 intact classes were randomly chosen along with their 57 teachers from ten public Senior High Schools in the Cape Coast Metropolis. The research employed a sequential explanatory mixed methods design. Four research instruments namely questionnaires, observation schedule, interview guides and achievement test were used to collect the data. The data collected from quantitative sources were analysed using inferential statistics and frequency counts. While those collected from interviews were analysed qualitatively and presented as narrative with some examples. Findings revealed that the variables: student anxiety, student attitude, student motivation and teacher-student relationship jointly explained 19% of the variance in achievement scores and attitude emerged as salient predictors of student achievement in mathematics and the sub constructs of the four variables collectively explained 44% of the variance in achievement scores. The implications of the results for the teaching and learning of mathematics are discussed.
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    Using Structural Equation Modelling to Examine Predictors of Teachers’ Work Engagement in Ghana
    (2018-10-24) Butakor, P.K.; Ampadu, E.
    The role and engagement of teachers has been an issue of interest to educational researchers in Ghana lately following the abysmal performance of Ghanaian students in national examinations. This is based on the assumption that the more teachers are actively engaged with teaching and learning environment, the better the performance of students. The purpose of the study was to examine the causal relationship between teachers emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, professional identity, and work engagement. And to achieve this purpose, a questionnaire consisting of four scales was administered to 260 teachers selected from the Adentan Municipal in the Greater Accra Region. Exploratory Factor Analysis, Structural Equation Modelling, and univariate statistical analyses were employed to analyse the data. Results of the analyses established that job satisfaction mediated the relationship between teachers’ emotional intelligence and work engagement. The findings also revealed that emotional intelligence positively affected professional identity directly and indirectly through job satisfaction. It was revealed that female teachers exhibited more professional identity and were more satisfied than their male counterparts. The study concluded with the recommendation that for Ghanaian teachers to be actively engaged with their job, they should be provided with the opportunity to develop and improve their emotional intelligence. It was also recommended that a module on emotional intelligence be included in the curriculum for training pre-service teachers.
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    The DTML-Conversion Model
    (2017-02-22) Kumassah, E.K.; Nyarko, K.
    Conversion within quantities of same units and between quantities of different units is a thorny subject for students. Its treatment by tutors sometimes becomes very difficult such that some tutors handle the subject theoretically and/or in abstraction. As a result, most students find the topic difficult to comprehend. In view of this, the DTML-Conversion model (i.e. the D-Conversion model (i.e. distance), the T-Conversion model (i.e. time), the M-Conversion model (i.e. mass) and the Reverse L-Conversion model (i.e. litre)) was designed. The DTML-Conversion Model is created by the researcher to make the teaching and learning of conversion in measurement more manageable for tutors and less troubling for students. The presentation will demonstrate one component of the model (the Distance-conversion functions) and how it can be effective in the teaching and learning of unit conversions.
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    Using Technology to Enhance Students’ Understanding of Selected Science Concepts in Integrated Science
    (2016-10-26) Kumassah, E.; Nyarko, K.
    Momentum and Direct Current are fundamental concepts in science, necessary for understanding a variety of phenomena of importance such as work, energy (i.e. potential and kinetic), impulse, power, pressure and force among others. However, investigations conducted among science students in linear momentum and direct current in other countries indicated that the difference between what is taught and what is learnt in science classes is much greater than what most instructors perceived. This is because findings from these studies showed that students have difficulties in understanding linear momentum and direct current. Over the years, this same issues have been raised by the Integrated Science Chief Examiners’ reports at the Colleges of Education level in Ghana. This ongoing study intends to use technology through a three-stage design-based research approach to see if technology could help bring about students' understanding in these two concepts
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    Relevance of the Senior High School Curriculum in Relation to Contextual Reality of the World of Work
    (2019-02-20) Okrah, A.K.; Amponsah, K.D.
    Issues relating to relevance of a curriculum have been of interest to educationists due to public yelps without resorting to empirical evidence. The senior high school is a terminating point for most of the graduating students making most of them unemployed. This mass unemployment of the youth after senior high school has mostly been attributed to the irrelevance of the curriculum. However, the skills in the curriculum have not been subjected to critical analysis to empirically prove their relevance or otherwise. The purpose of the study was therefore to identify the skills embedded in the curriculum, those skills the learners have acquired and those that employers usually demand of employees by relating them to empirical findings of the skills employers in general demand of employees. A conceptual analysis through content analysis approach was used to quantitatively determine the skills embedded in the curriculum. A qualitative analysis was then used to examine the richness of the skills. This ultimately led to purposive sampling procedure in which twenty-one students and fourteen key informants were selected for an interview. The data from the interview were sorted out into themes and coded through the use of NVivo 8 to help in the counting of frequencies of each skill. It was found out that the senior high school curriculum, though was generally rated as relevant, the skills with the highest frequencies in the curriculum focused on attitudes and values while those required by employers focused on the application of knowledge. The skills with the highest frequencies were those of the affective domain but the highest percentage values suggested in the curriculum constituted those of the cognitive domain. On the basis of these findings, it can be concluded that the curriculum is relevant in instilling values into the students but it is not relevant in the application of knowledge that employers usually demand of employees at the work environment. It is, therefore, recommended that the curriculum be reviewed, if similar findings of this type of research in different contexts are found, to get rid of those mismatches, in order to make it more relevant to the needs of contemporary society.
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    Instructional Practices, Barriers to Quality Teaching and Status of Physical Education in Public Primary Schools
    (2019-09-18) Ampadu, E.; Donkor, S.K.
    The study examined 1) instructional practices of teachers and regularity of teaching PE 2) adequacy of teacher education for teaching PE 3) status of PE as a school subject and 4) barriers to effective teaching of PE in the public primary schools of Volta Region, Ghana. The study design was cross-sectional descriptive survey. Multistage sampling technique yielded a sample of 636 subjects out of estimated population of 9,165 from six randomly sampled districts in the Volta Region of Ghana. Validated and reliable self-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Pre-data analyses were performed to clean data from probable errors during data entering. All data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS for Windows, Version 17). The study found that a large number of teachers do not follow prescriptions of lesson time table for teaching PE in the public primary schools, neither do they regularly teach PE, write lesson notes, attend workshops nor get supervised. According to the study, most teachers of public primary schools received inadequate knowledge in PE before starting professional carrier as teachers of PE. In comparison with other curricular subjects such english, maths and science, most teachers rated PE as having lower status as a school subject. From the study, an increase in the quality of teacher education programme in PE was associated with a corresponding increase in the frequency at which PE lessons were taught while a decrease in the quality of teacher education programme in PE was associated with an increase in teacher-related barriers to effective teaching of PE in public primary schools. It was recommended that Ghana Education Service (GES) and schools should liaise to supply and improvise teaching resources, create opportunities for workshops/professional development for teachers in public primary schools.