Assessment of Prospective Teachers Attitudes towards Teaching Profession: The Case of Northwest University, Kano-Nigeria

Abstract

Quality education is an indispensable instrument for national development. However the provision of quality education depends largely on the quality of teachers. Similarly, teacher education programme is designed to produce teacher with requisite training and sound professional background which requires a favourable attitude and certain specific competencies. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the Northwest University, Kano prospective teachers' attitudes towards profession of teaching. Field of study, gender and level of study's influence on their attitude were also examined. A descriptive survey design was adopted with a sample of 220 prospective teachers selected using a stratified random sampling technique. Professional Attitude Scale for Prospective Teachers (PASPT) constructed and validated by the researchers was used to collect data. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics and Independent Sample t-test to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that prospective teachers have positive attitude towards the profession. Similarly, asignificant gender difference was observed in their attitudes towards the profession. However theresults further showed no significant difference in the prospective teachers' attitudes towards the profession in relation to field of study and level of study.The implication is that, thisfavourable attitude towards teaching profession will bring about professional competence in the future practice.The study recommended among others, that further study should be conducted to investigate the factors responsible for the favourable or unfavourable attitude of prospective teachers towards teaching profession which will provide an insight on how stakeholders can bring attitudinal change towards the teaching profession.