Teachers' pedagogical communicative practices and Accounting students’ academic achievements in senior high schools in Ghana

Abstract

The study examined Accounting teachers’ pedagogical communicative practices and the academic achievement Accounting students, focusing on the extent of its occurrence. Teachers’ pedagogical communicative practices are the language behaviours and discourse strategies employed by teachers in their instructional delivery. The study employed an embedded concurrent mixed methods design. A questionnaire, Accounting achievement test for students, interview and observation guides were used to collect data from 481 respondents (made up of two heads of schools, 54 teachers, and 425 students) selected from 34 senior high schools in the Ahafo, Bono and Bono East Regions of Ghana. The quantitative data were analysed into descriptive and inferential statistics by using the SPSS software while the qualitative data were analysed thematically in accordance with the research questions. The findings from the study revealed that the Accounting teachers use appropriate pedagogical communicative practices (which include speaking loudly and boldly enough and making close eye contacts with students during class contributions) to help students to assimilate concepts better in Accounting, and to promote a stimulating learning environment. The study also revealed that teachers considered their students’ maturity level, needs, motivation and readiness to learn in deciding which methodology to use for a lesson. The study further revealed that there is no significant influence of pedagogical communicative practices on student academic achievement. Pedagogical communicative practices need to form part of the training of teachers for the senior high schools in order to prepare the teachers adequately for their assignments. Finally, the conceptual framework proposed is characterised by a synthesis of pedagogy and instructional communication, and the influence that such a combination has on the academic achievement of Senior High School Accounting students. To date, there is paucity of information in the extant literature regarding this practice in Africa, specifically, Ghana and hence the need for the current research to fill the gap.