An Assessment of the Psychometric Properties of the Conceptions of Teaching and Learning Questionnaire by Pre-service Mathematics Teachers in South-West, Nigeria

Adeneye Olarewaju Awofala, Abisola Olusola Lawani, Chidinma O Oraegbunam

Abstract

This paper reports on the psychometric properties of the Conceptions of Teaching and Learning Questionnaire (TLCQ) developed by Chan and Elliot (2004), based on the responses of 220 pre-service mathematics teachers from five public universities in South-West Nigeria. The term mathematics was introduced into the 30 item-statements, which measured both constructivist and traditional conceptions of teaching and learning, to reflect beliefs specific to mathematics teaching and students’ learning of mathematics. The reliability estimated as internal consistency had a Cronbach alpha of .89 for the constructivist scale, .86 for the traditional scale, and .87 for the entire scale. Findings revealed that Principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation yielded a two-factor solution accounting for 38% of the total variance, interpreted as Constructivist Conceptions and Traditional Conceptions of mathematics teaching and learning; as in the original study and other replicating studies. However, a notable difference was the significant loading of the item statement “learning primarily occurs from drilling and practice” on Constructivist Conceptions for the South West Nigeria, while it loaded on the Traditional Conceptions as reported in the original study in Hong Kong and other replicating studies. It is suggested that pre-service mathematics teachers be exposed to the constructivist teaching practices in the teacher education training programme in Nigeria.

Keywords

Conceptions of Teaching and Learning Questionnaire; Pre-service Mathematics Teachers; Psychometric properties; Nigeria.

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References

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.20961/ijpte.v3i2.33264

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