Abstract

• The main purpose of this study was to investigate the teaching aptitude and teaching competency of student teachers. Moreover, the present study was to examine the differences in teaching aptitude and teaching competency in terms of gender, reason of professional selection, subject stream and the relationship between teaching aptitude and teaching competency. The descriptive research design and quantitative survey method were used. A total of 101 fifth year student teachers (male=26, female=75) was chosen from Sagaing University of Education by using simple random sampling technique. In this study, Teaching Aptitude Test Battery (TATB) developed by Karim and Dixit (1986) consisting of 80 items was used to measure teaching aptitude and General Teaching Competency Scale (GTCS) developed and standardized by Passi and Lalita (2011)) consisting of 21 items to measure teaching competency of student teachers. The reliability coefficients of Teaching Aptitude Test Battery (TATB) and General Teaching Competency (GTCS) were 0.964 and 0.918 respectively. According to the descriptive statistics, student teachers from Sagaing University of Education were satisfactory on teaching aptitude and teaching competency. The result of independent samples t test showed that there were no significant differences in teaching aptitude and teaching competency by gender. Furthermore, there was no significant differences in teaching aptitude but there were significantly differences in teaching competency by reason of professional selection. The result of ANOVA showed that there were no significant differences in teaching aptitude and teaching competency by subject stream. The Pearson Product-Moment Correlation result revealed that there were significant positive relationships between teaching aptitude and teaching competency. It can be concluded that those who have high teaching aptitude are also high in teaching competency. Finally, the regression analysis indicated that 30% of teaching competency can be predicted from teaching aptitude.