Evaluación de resultados

Being an accounting teacher, the researcher wanted to get greater insight into the problem under study. Accordingly, he sought permission from authorities and those willing accounting teachers and students had their class sessions observed. The direct observation of accounting lessons were undertaken in senior high schools across the three regions selected from the three zones. In each case, the observation was undertaken for two instructional hours which is a period of 80 minutes. The observation was not done in a controlled environment. The results obtained have been partitioned into the issues pertaining to the classroom environment, academic engagement and time management, students‘ participation and questioning skills.

5.6.1 Classroom Environment

Most classrooms were dirty and seemed not to have been painted for many years. Most electrical fittings were out of place and only few bulbs were in place thereby casting doubts on illumination when the sun becomes less merciful. There were faulty electrical gadgets and

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naked electrical cables. Ventilation was appropriate but most louvre blades in the classrooms were broken and out of place. Most metal gadgets were rusty.

Some of the classrooms were overcrowded which impeded to some extent free movement of both teacher and students. Hence, some accounting teachers moved with difficulty to and fro in the class to guide students during instruction. Yet in some other schools, there was free movement during class interaction because the classroom was orderly arranged. Tables, chairs and students were well arranged to permit free movement. Albeit, generally, class control was a problem. Due to the poor illumination in the classrooms, students had difficulty in reading from the whiteboard as the sun reflection on the board made reading the board presentations problematic. In spite of this, the whiteboard was judiciously used by the accounting teachers. Their presentations on the whiteboard were bold and neat. But the whiteboards were too small in size to contain the lengthy accounting presentations. Thus, students had to keep up with the teachers always as the teachers had to often rub previous presentations to make way for new ones. This always compelled students to focus attention on writing instead of focusing on understanding of the lesson.

The appearances of the accounting teachers were monitored as well. Generally, they were poorly dressed contrary to what is needed to model the behaviour of the accounting students. For instance, one accounting teacher observed was casually dressed in Polo shirt which was not tucked in a pair of black trousers; these were matched with a pair of black sandals. There was yet another accounting teacher who also was casually dressed in a polo shirt and khaki trouser matched with some black shoe. In this case as well, the shirt was not tucked in the trousers. Another typical event was an accounting teacher who was dressed in plain long sleeves shirt tucked in a pair of khaki trousers which was firmly affixed to the waist with some black belt. These were matched with a pair of black shoes. However, the shirt and trousers looked a bit bigger on him.

5.6.2 Academic Engagement and Time Management

Almost every class session observed saw distractions. For example, one class was about half- way full at the beginning of the instruction because students who defaulted the payment of their school fees were sacked from school. In another class session, students came in late from lunch break. In yet some other classes, during the lesson, another teacher popped in to make some announcement to the class. Some students walked in after about 30 minutes of the

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class but the teacher showed no concern. It was a common happening to hear noise coming from the next class who were not engaged. Even when there was a teacher engaging the other class, noise from the activities of such neighbouring classes interfered with the quality of instruction. As a result, the accounting teachers had to talk on top of their voices to be clearly heard by the students. Albeit, the accounting students had their calculators and notebooks opened on their desks throughout the instruction. They displayed their attentiveness in the midst of such distractions. Apparently, they might be used to it.

The accounting teachers were confident and displayed good subject knowledge. Most of them provided alternative and detailed presentations. The teachers used various illustrations to promote understanding. They displayed mastery of the content knowledge. They dwelt on the entry behaviour of students to present facts in the topic. In most cases, they used practical examples to illustrate the key concepts and accompanying terminologies. They showed mastery of the subject matter. Often, throughout the lesson, they referred students to concepts taught and learned in earlier lessons to aid transfer of learning to facilitate understanding. The accounting students were focused, organized and comported. There was an instance where one accounting teacher missed the date of the day and was accordingly corrected by a student. Almost all the accounting teachers observed were particular about how terminologies in accounting are pronounced. They displayed practical knowledge of the subject and facilitated that in that manner.

During the instructional encounter, the accounting teachers were audible. However, the teachers often talked to the board whilst writing on the board. They were well prepared as one never referred to any material but taught the lesson in an orderly fashion. The lessons delivered were methodically presented. They were well-composed. Students were attentive as their interest was sustained throughout in most of the lessons observed. Most of the accounting teachers were particular about the grammatical construction of the students. They monitored students‘ understanding at every stage of the instruction. There was an instance where a teacher tactfully dealt with the responses of students by describing some irrelevant response as the result of over-learning.

In the course of the lesson, the teachers asked intermittently whether students had any questions to ask. Most of the teachers were serious and business-minded. In one case, a teacher set the rules of engagement that the teacher was not supposed to answer every

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question posed by students but other students should attempt to answer such questions as well. Accordingly, the teacher referred the students to the internet to find the meaning of

Cash Float, a question a student asked. The teacher further explained that either students

answered the question immediately or it be given as an assignment. Generally, the accounting teachers appeared disciplined and orderly. But one of the teachers often failed to give clear instructions to students thereby creating disorder in class. Another teacher often used ―OK‖ to find out whether students understood the lesson. This was almost like some mannerism because the teacher abused the use of it during the instruction. In addition, almost all the teachers observed were found always to be repeating responses given by students.

The teachers used both the written and spoken languages to enhance students‘ understanding. Thus, both whiteboard and oral presentations were used to appeal to students‘ understanding. No other teaching and learning resources were used apart from the marker and the whiteboard. In one session, the teacher‘s board presentations were difficult to read by students as the characters were small. In another session, the marker used by the teacher stained the whiteboard so subsequent board illustrations were difficult to see. Almost all the whiteboards were inadequate in size. One accounting teacher was in gross difficulty in using the board to aid the teaching of Ledger Accounts. The presentation of the ledger accounts and the entries made therein were not so visible. The teacher had to squeeze them such that all relevant accounts could be contained on the whiteboard at a time. Although the teacher made use of the board, the board was too small to contain the lengthy presentation in accounting. Time management was a problem for all the accounting teachers observed. In one observation session, the lesson ended 20 minutes before the expiry of the official instructional period. Consequently, the teacher could not complete the practical illustration question purported to be discussed with students before the expiry of the instructional time.

5.6.3 Students’ Participation

Students‘ participation in most of the accounting lessons observed was encouraging. Their involvement in the lesson presentation was mainly through answering questions posed by the teacher. Students volunteered to respond to such questions. Generally, students‘ participation was limited as such they were passively looking on as the teachers continued with the lesson. In this wise, the level of students‘ participation was limited to reading aloud notes on questions for the teacher to interpret. However, the students were enthusiastic to respond to the lesson. In other sessions, the participation of the students was reduced considerably as the

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teacher dominated the lesson with lots of talking. In that sense, almost all the teachers responded to all questions posed by students without giving the class the opportunity to attempt some responses. In one session, responses of students to questions posed by the teacher were referred to the class for confirmation or otherwise. Students were asked by the teacher to refer to some accounting text but not all the students had it available for such exercise.

In some cases, students got involved in the lesson by undertaking some directed computations with their calculators. They displayed understanding of the lesson through oral participation. But in other sessions, some teachers asked students to determine accounts involved in transactions noting those to be debited and others to be credited. Students participated enthusiastically. The teachers further stimulated deep understanding by asking students why they used specific terminologies in responding to some questions. In most cases, teachers interfered with students‘ responses by interrupting them with comments. Teachers ensured that students who asked questions were satisfied with the responses given by asking such students whether they were satisfied. Some teachers encouraged some low achieving students to assimilate the lesson.

There, however, was some difficulty with a teacher engaging all the students in the lesson. Some students were not attentive but the teacher never noticed them because the class size was large (69). The interference from the instructional activities of teachers and students in the neighbouring classes affected the attention of some students as they complained of the noise. Some students managed to copy the presentation the teachers were illustrating on the board whilst others were orally contributing to the lesson. However, some students seemed to have their minds wandering. As the lessons progressed, few students were paying attention and following it. Students were rather relaxed during the latter part of the instruction.

5.6.4 Questioning Skills and Motivational Strategies

The teacher evenly distributed questions but they often displayed poor questioning skills as they kept asking general questions such as ―Who can …?‖ Students sat in a rather lazed atmosphere. Those students who were paying attention played along by joining other students in unison to chorus responses to the questions the teacher asked. Teacher contributed to this by posing questions that demanded choral answers. To a limited extent, teachers used

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leading, focusing and prompting questions to motivate the students to generate right responses.

Appropriate responses were reinforced. Some teachers provided occasional reinforcements in the form of asking the class to clap for a student who put up the appropriate behaviour. One teacher encouraged students to respond to the lesson using words and/or phrases like ‗Yes! Try! Try!! I will give you GHS 1‖. Teacher handed over the motivational contract of GHS 1 promised the deserving students after the class. Whilst one accounting teacher used such motivational contract to motivate performance, another was rather demotivating and insulting. The teacher demeaned the students by openly rating them as inferior after comparing their performance with some so-called better students.