The Role of University Supervisor’s Supervisory Visits and the Enhancement of Student Teachers’ Competencies in Teaching

Abstract

This study sought to examine the extent to which supervisory visits influence the enhancement of student teachers’ competencies in teaching: The case of Universities of Buea and Bamenda. The literature review provide insights to the conceptual frameworks in the field of supervision of student teaching and identify the essential elements of supervisory visits along with international best practices. The literature equally focuse on bridging some theoretical approaches to supervisory visits and how they enhance competencies in teaching. The study employs the mixed method sequential explanatory deign. The population of this study constituted four groups of respondents namely: 20 university supervisors, 103 cooperating teachers, 260 student teachers and the researcher as an observer. The population was gotten through the simple random, purposive and proportionate sampling techniques and instruments for data collection were observation guide, 3 sets of questionnaires, and semi-structured interview schedule. Data collected was analysed using frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation while qualitative data derived from interview were analysed using the thematic analysis approach with the aid of themes, groundings/frequencies and quotations. From the data obtained, it was revealed that there is a correlation between supervisory visits and the enhancement of student teachers’ competencies in teaching. Based on the outcome of these findings, it can be said that university supervisors do not carry out supervisory visits and if effectively carried out, the acquisition of teaching competencies by student teachers may be improved. Based on this, it was recommended that a lot of emphasis has to be placed on the manner in which supervisors perform their supervisory responsibilities by paying effective supervisory visits to student teachers on field placement.