Factors that impede the formation of basic scientific concepts during teacher training in Ghana

There has been some concern in Ghana regarding teacher trainees’ low understanding of basic science concepts. This study was conducted in colleges of education in the Ashanti region of Ghana with the purpose of identifying factors that accounted for the teacher trainees’ low understanding of basic scientific concepts and appropriate strategies needed to address this problem. Questionnaires were administered to 80 teacher trainees from four colleges in Ghana to find out their background in science, their attitude towards science, their interest in science and the use of teaching and learning materials in science lessons. These questionnaires also sought to find out the teacher trainees’ study techniques and their recommendations for the improvement of teaching and learning of science. In addition, we attended lessons received by teacher trainees and observed teaching strategies in these classes. This was followed by analysis of the questionnaires. We found that the teacher trainees’ poor background in science, inflexible teaching methods they received in their science lessons, such as lecturing and provision of pointers to correct answers by their lectures, insufficient use of media integration in science lessons and teacher trainees’ poor attitudes towards science learning were some of the factors contributing to this state of affairs. We then recommended that teacher trainees be given activities which included reading assignments, involving them in laboratory work, media integration and by guiding teacher trainees by providing them with plausible explanations with evidence to help the trainees to reject their prior misconceptions.