College of Education Pre-service Teachers’ Attitude towards Teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in Oyo State, Nigeria

AKINTOLA, David Akinjide, MARTALA, Marafa and AKANJI, Veronica Olanike

Abstract

Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE) is the lowest teaching certificate in Nigeria to teach in the lower, middle and upper basic schools in Nigeria. STEM education is a modern scientific approach of teaching and learning tasks and procedures to combat the challenges of the twenty first century. This study investigated College of Education Pre-service Teachers’ Attitude towards Teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in Oyo State, Nigeria. Five public and private Colleges of Education in Oyo State were purposively sampled for the study. Descriptive research of the survey method was used for this study. Purposive sampling technique was used to target 433 final year Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Computer, Agricultural Science, Mathematics and Integrated Science (STEM) students for this study. Three hypotheses were raised for the study. The hypotheses were tested using T- test. It was observed that the level of pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy towards STEM teaching was low and pre-service teachers have negative attitudes towards STEM   teaching. Also, gender has no influence on the pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy and attitude towards STEM teaching.  Moreover, school type whether private or public college of education does not influence the level of self-efficacy beliefs of pre-service STEM teachers towards STEM teaching.