Pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of their mathematics tutors’ classroom learning environment management practices

The study explored pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of their classroom-learning environment for learning mathematics, specifically, geometric transformation. The pre-service teachers’ perceptions examined were confined to their tutors’ support, equity, and task orientation during lessons on geometric transformation. Using a descriptive survey design, the views of 60 pre-service mathematics tutors, who
were purposively sampled from three Colleges of Education in Ghana, were collected through a classroom learning environment management questionnaire. This instrument was adapted from the WIHIC Classroom Learning Environment Inventory which was used to collect data after the respondents had been taught geometric transformations in the colleges. The pre-service teachers’ perceptions of mathematics classroom learning environment were gauged by their mean ratings of their agreement/disagreement with 5-point Likert scale statements about the subscales explored. The results show that there were only few of the statements about effective classroom learning environment
management practices in the three subscales explored which the pre-service teachers rated above 3.5 on the5-point Likert scale. The overall mean score obtained on the ratings for tutor support (M = 3.20, SD = 1.456), teacher equity (M = 2.48, SD = 1.455) and task orientation (M = 2.48, SD = 1.455), suggest the pre-service teachers’ perception of their tutors’ effectiveness in managing the classroom learning environment was low or not good enough to enhance their learning of geometric transformations. This indicates the pre-service teachers’ have a negative perception of the effectiveness of their tutors’ classroom learning environment management practices to promote their learning of geometric transformations. It is recommended that CPD in the colleges should focus on enhancing tutors’ or mathematics educators’ classroom
learning environment management practices in order to help pre-service teachers appreciate the learning of mathematics.

Keywords: pre-service teachers; classroom learning environment; learning environment management practices