Effective Teaching and Evaluation of Mathematics by Secondary School Mathematics Teachers in the North West Region of Cameroon

Abstract

The study set out to examined the extent to which secondary school mathematics teachers implement the principles of effective teaching and evaluation of mathematics as put forward by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics – NCTM; principles which when effectively implemented will enable learners to construct knowledge thereby doing away with mathematics phobia, and consequently performing better in mathematics. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was made up of 600 public and private secondary school mathematics teachers serving in the North West Region of Cameroon. Using the Taro Yamane’s formula, 240 mathematics teachers selected through simple random sampling, constituted the sample of the study. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. A questionnaire whose Cronbach alpha reliability was found to be 0.87 was used to collect relevant data. The data collected was analysed using mean to answer the research questions and t-test to test the hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that the level of implementation of the principles of effective teaching and evaluation of mathematics by secondary school mathematics teachers in the North West Region of Cameroon is significantly low. Furthermore, male and female mathematics teachers do not differ significantly in their implementation of the principles of effective teaching and evaluation of mathematics. It was recommended among other things that secondary school mathematics teachers should embrace the NCTM principles of effective teaching and evaluation of mathematics with finesse and incorporate them within their instructional programs and practices.