Effect of Instructor Quality and Availability on Ghanaian Students’ Interest in Mathematics Using Regression and Principal Component Analysis

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of instructor quality and availability on Ghanaian students’ interest in Mathematics. The study used structured questionnaire to randomly select 1,263 students from 10 public secondary schools in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The study performed principal component analysis on the instructor quality and availability construct as well as regression analysis to ascertain the contribution of instructor quality on students’ interest development. Here, the results showed that the instructor quality construct with Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.699 can be further categorized into two principal components with the first component explaining 41.7% while the second component explains 12.8% with a total cumulative variance of 54.5%. The results from the multiple regression analysis showed significant (p<0.0001) in predicting students’ interest in Mathematics. The model could predict 7.4% of the variability in students’ interest in Mathematics. The study finally concluded that students’ interest in Mathematics can be enhanced through quality of instruction and availability of qualified instructors. The study recommends to the education ministry to take cognizance of the result in their recruitment of Mathematics teachers for the various levels of education especially in the first and second cycle schools.