TEACHING ANXIETY, EPISTEMOLOGICAL BELIEF, SUCCESS EXPECTANCY, TEACHING APTITUDE, AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS PREDICTORS OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN AND ATTITUDE TO MATHEMATICS

Abstract

Mathematics is the bedrock of scientific and technological development; hence, adequate measure must be taken to improve students’ achievement in and attitude towards the subject at all levels of education especially at Colleges of Education because mathematics teachers plays an important role in its development. Reports from Colleges of Education revealed that pre-service teachers’ achievement in and attitude to Mathematics are poor. Previous studies focused on effective strategies of teaching Mathematics to pre-service Mathematics teachers without considering the extent to which psychological variables could predict their achievement in and attitude towards the subject. This study, therefore, investigated Mathematics Teaching Anxiety (MTA), Epistemological Belief (EB), Success Expectancy (SE), Teaching Aptitude (TA) and Emotional Intelligence (EI) as predictors of pre-service teachers’ achievement in and attitude to Mathematics in the South-west, Nigeria.

Psychoanalytic theory provided the framework. The survey design of correlational type was adopted while multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the pre-service Mathematics teachers’. At the first stage, a total enumeration sampling technique was used to select 11 Colleges of Education (four federal and seven state) in the South-west, Nigeria. At the second stage, purposive sampling technique was used to select 1450 (300 Level) pre-service mathematics teachers (656 male and 794 female) and their age range between 20 to 28 years. Seven research instruments [MTA (r=.77), EB(r=.83), SE(r=.75), EI (r=.81) and Attitude towards Mathematics (r=.83) scales, TA (r=.84) and Mathematics Achievement (r=.89) tests] were used to collect data. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation and Multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance.

Mathematics Teaching Anxiety (r=.10), Success Expectancy (r=.05) and Teaching Aptitude (r=.42) positively correlated with pre-service teachers’ achievement in Mathematics. Mathematics Teaching Anxiety (r=.29), Epistemological Belief (r=.34), Success Expectancy (r=.48), Emotional Intelligence (r=.29) positively correlated with Pre-service teachers’ attitude towards Mathematics. Psychological variables had significant composite contribution to both pre-service teachers’ achievement (F(5.1446)=60.97,Adj.R2=.171) in and attitude towards Mathematics (F (5.1446)=130.21, Adj R2 0.308). This implies that 17.1% of the variance in the achievement in Mathematics and 30.8% of the variance in the attitude towards Mathematics were accounted for by the five predictor variables taken together. Only Teaching Aptitude had a significant relative contribution to achievement in Mathematics (β=.41; t=16.91) while Emotional Intelligence (β =.15;t=8.49),Mathematics Teaching Anxiety (β =.11; t=5.68) and Epistemological Belief (B=0.01; t=5.90) had significant relative contributions to pre-service Mathematics teachers’ attitude to Mathematics.

High Teaching Aptitude had a positive influence on achievement in Mathematics among the pre-service teachers while high Emotional Intelligence, low Mathematics Teaching Anxiety and Epistemological Belief were strong determinants of pre-service teachers’ attitude to Mathematics. Educational policy makers and school administrators should, therefore, factor the variables into Mathematics teachers’ preparation programmes for improved learning outcomes.

Keywords: Mathematics Teaching Anxiety, Epistemological Belief, Teaching Aptitude, Emotional Intelligence and Achievement in and Attitude towards Mathematics Words counts: 443