IMPROVING SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN MATHEMATICS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF COLLABORATIVE AND TRADITIONAL DISCUSSION STRATEGIES

Abstract

The study sought to promote senior secondary school students’ interest in algebra through collaborative instructional strategy, Kogi State. To achieve this, two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Quasi-experimental design specifically, the pre-test, post-test, nonequivalent randomized sampling technique was used for the study. The population of the study consisted of 12703 (6,680 male and 6,023 female) Senior Secondary (SSII) students from which 220 students were sampled using multi-stage sampling. The instrument used for data collection was algebra interest inventory using four point likert scale. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.5 level of significance. The findings showed that, there was a statistically significant high interest mean scores of students in Algebra when exposed to collaborative learning strategy. The findings further revealed that, there was no statistically significant difference between the interest rating means scores of male and female students taught algebra using collaborative learning strategies. It was recommended that to enhance students’ interest in algebra, mathematics teachers should use collaborative learning strategy when teaching algebra and other complex concepts in mathematics. Government should consider revising the time allocated in teaching mathematics using collaborative learning strategy to boost students’ interest, and academic performance in mathematics. Additionally, regular professional development workshops should be provided for teachers to enhance their skills in implementing collaborative learning strategy effectively.