Effect of differentiated instructional strategies on students’ retention in geometry in FCT senior secondary schools, Abuja, Nigeria

R.A Ogunkunle,Onwunedo Azuka Henrietta

doi:10.4314/gjedr.v13i1.1

Abstract

The effect of differentiated instructional strategies on students’ retention in geometry in senior secondary schools was examined. The study employed experimental research design of pretest, posttest control group. The area of this study is Abuja Municipal Area Council, the Federal Capital Territory. The target population was the entire mathematics student in senior secondary class 2 (SS2) in the area. The simple random sampling technique was adopted and used to select two senior schools and 100 subjects for the study. Researcher-designed Geometry Achievement Test (GAT) containing 25 multiple choice items with reliability coefficient of 0.90 was used to measure students’ academic achievement before and after treatment. The researcher taught the experimental and control groups for six weeks. At the beginning and end of the six weeks GAT was administered as a pre-test and post-test to the students in the two groups. The result shows among others that differentiated instructional strategies was more effective in promoting meaningful learning and enhancing mathematics students’ achievement than the conventional method (Z 98 =11.320, p<.05). The result of the post-post-test administered to the experimental and control group students’ four weeks after the first post-test also show that retention ability was significantly higher in the experimental group students than in the control group student (z 98 = 13.876, p<.05). Conclusion from these findings led to the recommendation that Mathematics teachers and educators should adopt the Differentiated instructional strategies as an Innovative, efficient and effective strategy in teaching geometry concepts in Mathematics. Keywords: Differentiated instruction, Lecture , Cognitive Achievement, Retention ability, Geometry

Highlights

Experience for the past years as Mathematics educator has shown that not all students are alike
H02 Senior secondary students taught geometry using differentiated instructional strategies do not perform significantly better in their retention of concepts than those taught using conventional method
Research question 1: What is the difference between the cognitive achievements of senior secondary students taught geometry with differentiated instructional strategies and those taught using conventional method? The result is presented in table 1

Summary

Introduction

Experience for the past years as Mathematics educator has shown that not all students are alike. Language proficiency, background knowledge, readiness to learn, and other factors vary widely within a single class group. Regardless of their individual differences, students are expected to master the same concepts, principles, and skills. Helping all students succeed in their learning is an enormous challenge that requires innovative thinking Based on this knowledge, differentiated instruction applies an approach to teaching and learning that gives students multiple options for taking in information and making sense of ideas. Differentiated instruction is a teaching theory based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse students in classrooms (Tomlinson, 2001). The idea of differentiating Mathematics instruction to accommodate the different ways

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion