ASSESSING PRE-SERVICE BUSINESS EDUCATION TEACHERS CHALLENGES IN THEIR PURSUIT OF QUALITY TEACHING PRACTICE IN NIGERIA.

Abstract

The study assessed the pre-service teachers challenges in their pursuit of quality teaching practice in Nigeria. Two research questions were formulated and one hypothesis of no significant difference guided the study. Survey designs were adopted for the study. The population comprised of all 181 final-year students 2022/2023 session of business education from the two public universities in Ebonyi state of Nigeria. Namely Alex Ekwueme Federal University and Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki. The entire population was studied without sampling because the size is manageable. A structured questionnaire/title: Assessing Pre-Service Teachers' Challenges in Their Pursuit of Quality Teaching Practice in Nigeria, which consisted of 20 items in two sections was used to elicit information from the respondents. The questionnaire was face validated by three experts from Business education and Test and Measurement Department. Cronbach alpha was used to determine the internal consistency of the questionnaire items and a coefficient of 0.88 was obtained. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while the hypothesis were tested using t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed some challenges facing pre- serice in their pursuit of quality teaching practice exercises which include: difficulty in planning lessons; difficulty in using a variety of teaching methods to sustain the students interest; inadequate time; lack of instructional materials in their schools of practice; non-professional attitude of the school administrators and supervisory challenges. Based on the findings, It was recommended among others that: Government and non-governmental organizations should assist in supplementing educational materials and learning resources that would prepare the students for learning; competent and dedicated supervisors should be used in teaching practice supervisory, adequate curriculum guidelines, facilities, reference materials (such as text-book) should be made available.