College of Education Pre-Service Teachers’ Attitude in Terms of Usefulness, Confidence and Enjoyment towards Geometry by Gender

Abstract

This study investigated gender differences in pre-service teachers’ attitude towards geometry in Northern Region of Ghana. The research design was descriptive cross-sectional survey. A concurrent mixed-methods approach was adopted using both closed and open-ended questionnaire items. The population for the study was one thousand, six hundred and sixty-nine (1669) level 200 Pre-service Teachers (PSTs). The sample composed of two hundred and forty (240), comprising 120 PSTs each of female and male. The sampling procedure was convenient, stratified and simple random. The instrument used was 32 item Utley Geometry Attitude Scales (UGAS) that was developed by Utley (2007) and 4 opened ended questions. Statistically significant difference was detected between the male and female in their responses to usefulness of learning geometry, confidence to learning geometry and enjoyment of learning geometry which all favored the male PSTs who showed positive attitude towards geometry.