Student Teachers’ Perceptions of Teaching Practice Assessment of Mwenge Catholic University, Tanzania

Abstract

Teaching practice is a key component of the undergraduate teacher training programme. It is during this period that the student teacher gets to translate the skills and theory learnt into reality through actual classroom teaching. The study investigated the student teachers’ perceptions of teaching practice assessment. The study adopted a cross sectional survey design. 75 students were selected using stratified random sampling technique based on gender, year of study and programme of study. Questionnaires were used which had a reliability coefficient alpha of 0.84 to collect data. The collected data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that the student teachers’ perceptions towards teaching practice assessment were favorable. The findings indicated that there were no statistically significant differences in student teachers perceptions of teaching practice assessment by programme of study and year of study at 0.05 significance level. However there was a statistically significant difference in perceptions of teaching practice assessment between male and female student-teachers at 0.05 significance level. The study recommended that the Mwenge Catholic University should ensure that student teachers especially first year students and female students are adequately prepared before engaging in teaching practice sessions and the university should consider increasing the number observations made during assessment of teaching practice from one to two per teaching practice session.

Keywords: Student Teacher, Perception, Teaching Practice Assessment