EFFECTS OF BUTTERFLY METHOD ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN FRACTION AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS IN KANO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Mathematics at the primary school level is the foundation for the study of the subject at higher
levels. As such, primary school mathematics needs to be taught to the pupils effectively for
maximum learning outcome among children. However, there has been persistent outcry of poor
performance in mathematics among primary school pupils as well as poor skills in attempting
problems involving basic operations in fractions This study examined the effects of Butterfly
method on primary school pupils’ academic performance in Fraction in Kano State, Nigeria.
The study was guided by two (2) research questions and two (2) hypotheses which were tested
at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted the quasi-experimental pretest posttest
nonequivalent control group design. The population of the study was 8,374 Primary five pupils
from 44 Model Primary Schools in Kano state. Two schools were randomly selected and one
intact class was randomly selected from each school. One class was randomly assigned to
experimental group and the other to control group. The experimental group had 79 pupils
made up of 42 boys and 37 girls while the control group had 60 pupils made up of 26 boys and
34 girls. Thus, the sample size was 139 pupils. Fraction Performance Test (FPT) with
reliability coefficient of 0.81 was developed and used by the researchers to collect data. FPT
contained five (5) essay questions and was administered as pretest before the commencement
of the experiment to both groups. The experimental group was then exposed to butterfly method
for 3 weeks while the control group was taught by the conventional lecture (LCM) method for
the same duration. FPT items were reshuffled and taken as posttest by both groups. Data
collected from FPT were analyzed using mean, standard deviation and t-test. Findings
revealed that primary school pupils taught by using butterfly method outperformed those
taught by using conventional lecture method. In terms of gender, the findings showed that girls
performed significantly better than boys when taught by using Butterfly method. It was
recommended that SUBEB should train and re-train primary school Mathematics teachers,
through workshops and seminars, on the application and use of Butterfly method in their
classrooms.