Effective Teaching Practice Supervison: A Predictor of Teacher Trainees' Performance in Pedagogy

Abstract

The quality of teachers prepared for basic education in Africa and othercontinents of the world is a consequence of the knowledge of contentacquired and the pedagogy. Effective teaching practice supervision coulddetermine the level of teacher trainees� performance in the art of teaching. The study investigated the differences in performance of teacher trainees who embarked on continuous Teaching Practice and Supervision � TP & S (of twelve weeks) and those of non-continuous teaching practice and supervision � TP & S (of six weeks in two installments). It equally examined whether there was a relationship or not in the performance of teacher trainees when they are team supervised and when they are not teamed supervised in pedagogy. Five hundred (500) teacher trainees were randomly selected assamples from two (2) colleges of education owned by Lagos StateGovernment of Nigeria. They are Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education (AOCOED), Ijanikin and Michael Otedola College of Primary Education (MOCPED), Noforija-Epe. Their final assessment scores at the end of 2008/2009 teaching practice exercise were utilized. Using independent t-test statistic, it was found that those who embarked on continuous TP & S were able to perform significantly better than those who embarked on noncontinuous TP & S. However, using Pearson Moment Correlation Analysis (r), there was a significant relationship in the performance of teacher trainees when they were team supervised and when they were not team supervised at all. It was suggested among others that if teacher trainees should go on continuous TP & S, they would be more skilled and thus develop competence and dexterity in pedagogy since practice makes perfection. Team supervision of pedagogy was also suggested so as to curb subjectivity and biases, even as teachers are prepared for basic education.