The Effect of Ethnomathematics on Junior Secondary School Students’ Achievement and Retention in Geometry in Benue State, Nigeria: A Corona Virus Pandemic Case Study
- May 29, 2021
- Posted by: RSIS
- Categories: Education, IJRIAS, Mathematics
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Applied Science (IJRIAS) | Volume VI, Issue IV, April 2021|ISSN 2454-6194
Age Terungwa James, Akaazua, Jacob Tertsea PhD.
Department of Mathematics Education, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Benue State- Nigeria
Abstract: Training programmes in Nigeria at secondary school level concentrated more on foreign knowledge without considering the various cultures and traditions of the different tribes that make up these secondary schools. This paper therefore examined the effect of ethnomathematics on Junior Secondary School students’ achievement and retention in geometry in Benue State, Nigeria: a corona virus pandemic case study. Quasi-experimental of non-equivalent control group design was adopted in this study. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The 25-item Geometry Achievement Test (GAT) was used for data collection. The instrument was administered to 30 students for trial testing and subjected to test re-test reliability estimate to obtain the reliability coefficient of 0.71. Simple random sampling was adopted to select two schools out of the 35 Junior Secondary School two (JSS2) students’ population of 7242. Intact classes from the two schools were purposively selected to obtain a sample of 137 JSS2 students and were randomly assigned to experimental (N=72) and control (N=65) groups. The experimental group was handled by the informal school research assistants while the usual class teachers handled the control group via radio in line with corona virus (Covid 19) safety guide lines. Students were pre-tested to ascertain initial entry point, after six weeks post-test was administered to the two groups for achievement and two weeks later the retention test was carried out. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while the Analysis of Co-variance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings from the statistical analysis showed, significant difference on achievement (F1,136 =711.461) and retention (F1,136 =2.923) of students’ in favour of those taught geometry with ethnomathematics compare with those taught with the lecture method.
Keywords: Ethnomathematics; Achievement; Retention; Geometry. Junior Secondary School Students
I. INTRODUCTION
Mathematics is an important human endeavour and has many educational values aside from its technological importance. First, it offers a vast number of structures such as numbers, algorithms, shapes, ratios, functions and data that are useful in understanding physical realities. Secondly, mathematics is a
