HIDDEN PEDAGOGY OF THE CLASSROOM AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR INITIAL TEACHER PREPARATION: A TRACER STUDY OF SSCOE NCE GRADUATES, SOKOTO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study traced serving Shehu Shagari College of Education (SSCOE), Sokoto Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) graduates to primary schools where they teach and investigated areas where their Initial Teacher Preparation (ITP) is deficient, challenges they face in the discharge of their duties as teachers and the hidden pedagogies they use as mechanism to respond to the challenges. It was a Descriptive Survey and Case study research designs and the population of the study are all the 7, 246 NCE graduates teaching in primary schools across the 23 LGEAS in Sokoto State, which were represented in the Multi stage sample method by 357 teachers as recommended by the Research Advisor (2006) table for determining sample size from a given population. Similarly, 20 Head-teachers and 1,174 pupils of schools where SSCOE, Sokoto NCE graduates teach were also part of the population. Triangulation was used in data collection; the instruments were two Researcher-designed questionnaires for serving SSCOE, Sokoto NCE graduates and Head-teachers of primary schools, Researcher-designed Classroom Observation Checklist and qualitative or In-depth Interview for serving SSCOE NCE graduates and Focus Group Discussion Guides for pupils. All the instruments were validated by a team of experts and supervisors from the Department of Educational Foundations, Usmanu Danfodiyo, University, Sokoto. While reliability index (0.45, 0.58 and 0.60) of Questionnaires and Checklist were obtained through Test-re-test method using Crumbach Alpha but for Qualitative interview, a technique of repeating question in a slightly different form during the interview was used. Data was analyzed using frequency, percentage and mean score as well as thematic or content analysis. Among the findings of the study was, the most challenging aspects of teaching for SSCOE NCE graduates are classroom management, assessment of pupils, time management; and thus, one of the recommendations was that, there is need for TTIs, SSCOE in particular during the ITP to give student-teachers more training on these pedagogical aspects found challenging for serving NCE graduates.