Investigating the Statistics Content Knowledge of Pre-Service Teachers in the Colleges of Education in Ghana

Abstract

The study investigated the Statistics content knowledge of College of Education pre-service teachers in Ghana. The explanatory sequential design, quantitative followed by qualitative data, was employed. The quantitative data was gathered via questionnaire containing an achievement test (teacher made) while the qualitative data was collected through an interview. The study used one hundred and ninety-one pre-service teachers for the quantitative phase of the study, out of which eight were purposively chosen for the interview. Findings of the study revealed that participants have an average knowledge level in colleges of education statistics content course. Again, the study showed that significant gender difference exists in these selected pre-service teachers‟ statistics content knowledge, and it was in favour of the male counterparts. Measures of dispersion was found to be a difficult area for the participating pre-service teachers. Moreover, pre-service teachers in the selected college showed misunderstanding in some statistics topics, especially in calculating the quartile, semi-interquartile range, and finding the 25th percentile and median from frequency distribution table. Among recommendations from the findings was that mathematics tutors at the colleges of education should pay attention to the teaching of topics such as finding mean, median, and percentiles from frequency distribution tables, as well as topics under measures of dispersion.