Abstract

• Pre-service teachers are the energy of today, the bright hope of the future and the key persons in promoting the educational system. Pre-service teachers’ aptitude is an important characteristic to success in teaching. The main aim of the study is to investigate teaching aptitude of pre-service teachers. Moreover, the present study was conducted to find out the differences in teaching aptitudes of pre-service teachers according to gender, grade and age. In this study, the descriptive survey method was used and the samples were a total of 200 pre-service teachers from Sagaing University of Education. There were 100 first year pre-service teachers (50 Males and 50 Females) and 100 fifth year pre-service teachers (50 Males and 50 Females). The participants were selected by using the random sampling technique. Teaching Aptitude Questionnaire developed by Jain & Vishitha (2011) was utilized to measure their aptitudes. This questionnaire consists of three factors that affect teaching aptitudes; teacher perception of teacher effectiveness, attitude towards teaching profession and teaching interest. According to descriptive statistics, pre-service teachers from Sagaing University of Education had satisfactory teaching aptitude. The descriptive results showed that female teachers possessed more teaching aptitude than male teachers. It was found that fifth year pre-service teachers had higher teaching aptitude compared to first year pre-service teachers. The results indicated that aged pre-service teachers possessed better teaching aptitude than younger pre-service teachers. Based on the analysed results, conclusion, discussion and recommendations were made.