Comparative Effectiveness of Problem Solving Approach on Students’ Achievement in Mathematics: The Case of Single-Sex and Co-Educational Secondary Schools in Kenya

Abstract

This study aimed at comparing the effectiveness of Problem Solving Approach (PSA) on students’ achievement in mathematics in single-sex and co-educational secondary schools in Kenya. The study targeted a population of 10,500 students enrolled in 109 public schools in Vihiga County. Stratified random sampling was used to select twelve schools from the 109 schools. A sample of 1459 students was purposively and randomly drawn from the twelve schools. The study employed the Solomon’s Four-Group Design. The respondents were assigned in their intact classes to experimental groups 1 and 3 and control groups 2 and 4. All the groups were taught the same content of the topic Commercial Arithmetic. However, experimental groups were taught using PSA while control groups were instructed by conventional method. One experimental group and one control group were pre-tested prior to the implementation of the PSA treatment. After the treatment, the four groups were post-tested. Mathematics Achievement Test 1 (MAT 1) and Mathematics Achievement Test 2 ((MAT 2) were used to gather data. The instruments’ validity was determined by mathematics education experts. Reliability coefficients of 0.795 and 0.872 were obtained for MAT 1 and MAT 2 respectively using Cronbach’s alpha. Data analysis involved the use of both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics involved means and standard deviations and inferential statistics involved an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results revealed that PSA significantly improved students’ mathematics achievement in the single-sex schools in comparison to those in the co-educational schools. It was concluded that PSA is a more effective and valuable teaching strategy to students in the single-sex schools. Therefore, the results attained in this study will allow re-focussing of the teaching strategies used in the co-educational schools so as to address the low students’ achievement in mathematics. It was recommended that the Government of Kenya through the Ministry of Education should set up more single-sex schools and stream the current co-educational schools into single-sex classes and warmly endorse PSA as the classroom instructional strategy. Keywords: Problem Solving Approach, Achievement, Single-sex schools, Co-educational schools. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-32-05 Publication date: November 30 th 2020