Exploring Economics Teachers Perceptions of the Training-of-Teachers Project as an Professional Development Strategy

Abstract

South Africa is going through several education reforms in order to prepare more learners for challenges and success in the 21st century and beyond. A key to the success of the reforms is the quality of teachers and their teaching methods. A profound change in teacher practices is called for, which would entail theestablishment of sustainable enabling teachingand learning environments and conditions which promote fundamental and critical engagement ina transformative education system. In view of the latter, the primary objective of this paper is to investigate economics teachers’ perceptions of the Training-of-Teachers initiative (ToT) as a professional development strategy in Free State secondary schools. To achieve this objective, the following research questions are formulated: What is economics education and why is it important to promote this phenomenon in South African schools? and What constitutes the Training-of-Teacherss project as ptofessional development strategy Free State secondary schools? An exploratory, descriptive, contextual quantitative research approach was selected. A pretest-posttest design was constructed, making use of EMT data collection instrument. A sample of two hundred and sixty seven economics teachers (n=267) were selected to participate in the research study. The results of this study indicate that there were significant differences between the female group as compared to the male group as regards the pretest-posttest scores. Teachers exposed to the ToT initiative performed better in economic literacy, positive attitude toward economics and experienced an increase in understanding economics as a discipline. Finally, the ToT initiative impacted significantly on teachers’ learning in economics education.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n1p753