Teacher Training Program on Secondary Mathematics and Science Teachers’ Attitude and Confidence of Teaching

Abstract

When teachers are confident in their ability to teach Mathematics and Science, it can inspire students to have confidence in their own abilities. Students are more likely to engage with and enjoy these subjects when they see their teacher's interest and belief in the material. This study aiming at exploring teachers' confidence of teaching Mathematics and science as result of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) by the African Institute for Mathematical Science (AIMS Rwanda) through its Teacher Training Program (AIMS-TTP). It employed an ex-post facto research design targeting 351 secondary school teachers. The findings revealed a positive and significant relationship (p<0.05) between AIMS-TTP interventions and teachers’ confidence to teach Mathematics and science. Besides, linear regression model indicated that the dependent variable Teachers’ Confidence to teach Mathematics and science was regressed on predicting variables of improved capacity to plan, adapting teaching to the level of learners, ICT integrated in teaching and learning; learning from peers; addressing cross-cutting issues; effective implementation of the competence-based curriculum (CBC); and the application of bloom’s taxonomy. The independent variables significantly predict teachers’ confidence of teaching Mathematics and science, F (7,326) =183.843, p<0.001, which indicates that the factors under study have a significant impact on teachers’ confidence of teaching Mathematics and science. Moreover, the findings (Adjusted R² =0.822, F _{(8, 342)} = 197.055, p= 0.000 p<0.05) indicated that 82.2 % of the variance in improved teachers’ attitude in teaching Mathematics and science evidences a significant influence on the total variance. Our research suggests that policy makers should consider developing and endorsing training on innovative teaching and learning methods to boost teachers’ confidence and attitude when it comes to instructing Mathematics and science at basic levels. Trainings should also be extended to Technical Secondary School (TSS) STEM teachers.

Received: 11 March 2024 | Revised: 30 April 2024 | Accepted: 20 May 2024

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

The data supporting the findings are not accessible to the public because of confidentiality. However, anonymized data can be obtained from the author upon reasonable request.