Sense of Efficacy in Implementing Social Studies Curriculum : Social Studies Conceptions and Curriculum Implementation

Social Studies, as a subject in the JHS curriculum in Ghana, is taught mostly by diploma teachers from the country's thirty-eight public Colleges of Education and graduates from other tertiary institutions. An out-and-out analysis of the Colleges of Education Social Studies curriculum vis--vis the JHS syllabus reveal differences in how the subject is structured and organised to prepare teachers to go and teach it at the JHS level. Thus the aim of the study was to find out the conceptions of final year teacher-trainees and their sense of efficacy in implementing the Basic School Social Studies Curriculum in Ghana. A sequential mixed method design was used. Data from questionnaire was triangulated with interviews, focus group discussion and classroom observation. Pearson's Correlation Coefficient (r) was used to determine whether significant relationship exists in teacher-trainees' conceptions of Social Studies from the colleges used. The r-value is the probability for which the null hypothesis was rejected. A critical value of alpha = 0.05 was adopted for significance in the statistical analysis.