TEACHERS, MATHEMATICS, CONCEPTION

This study was undertaken to examine pre-service teachers’ conception of mathematics, University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State. One hundred and twenty mathematics students were randomly selected from the faculty of Education and the faculty of physical sciences, University of Benin, Edo State out of a population of 550 mathematics students in both faculties. To guide this study, four (4) research questions were raised. Nineteen (19) questionnaire items were generated for the research questions raised to guide the study. The data collected for the research questions were using frequency count and mean. The results gotten from the analysis revealed that majority of the Pre-service teachers have negative conception towards the learning of
mathematics. Based on the findings, it was recommended that; Lecture method of teaching mathematics be replaced with problem solving method as this will
enable students to develop good study habits and reasoning powers, stimulates their thinking, helps improve and apply their knowledge and experience to real life situations, mathematics teachers should put on good
behaviour in class as this helps to motivates students to listen attentively, periods of teaching mathematics should be fixed in the morning as this will enable students to understand mathematics better, mathematics teachers should make use of good instructional materials as this will help students to understand mathematics better, and lastly, parents should monitor their children’s progress, buy good textbooks and other learning materials that are relevant to their studies.