By
J.D. Agbir
Samuel I. Wachin
Department of Chemistry,
College of Education, Katsina-Ala.
Abstract
This study determined the feasibility of using mentoring as a training programme for beginning chemistry teachers. Three local government areas were randomly sampled from seven in Benue state Education zone A. Twelve schools were purposively sampled from the three local government areas. Twenty-two beginning chemistry teachers and twelve veterans were used as sampled subjects. Six schools each were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. The beginning chemistry teachers were observed using Chemistry Teacher’s Observation Scheduled (CTOS), as an instrument with a reliability coefficient of 0.91. Treatment of experimental group took 8 weeks after the pre-test. Data collected were analyzed using t-test and one-way ANOVA. Three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 significant levels. The results showed that mentored beginning teachers developed high teaching competencies; that significant difference existed in teaching competencies of professionally trained teachers over their non-professional counterparts. It was recommended that mentoring should be used as a teacher support or on-the-job training programme for teachers.