Effects of peer tutoring and study questions–based instructional strategies on students’ achievement and attitude towards mathematics in Bayelsa State, Nigeria

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of peer tutoring and study questions - based instructional strategies on students’ achievement and attitude towards mathematics. The study was carried out on Bayelsa State public secondary schools mathematics students. Two research questions were raised and two corresponding null hypotheses that were tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. A pretest- posttest control group quasi-experimental design was employed. The study made use of two experimental groups and a control group. The purposive sampling technique was used to select 173 junior secondary class 3 (JS3) mathematics students from six mixed secondary schools. Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT) and Mathematics Students’ Attitude Questionnaire (MSAQ) were the two instruments used in the study. These instruments were validated using face validity, content validity and construct validity. All the research questions were answered with mean and standard deviation. Furthermore, all the null hypotheses were tested using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and Scheffe test statistics. One of the findings shows that peer tutoring and study questions - based instructional strategies were effective in the improvement of students’ achievement in mathematics. The findings indicated that peer tutoring and study questions - based instructional strategies have some relative positive impact on students’ attitude in mathematics. The researchers thus recommended that peer tutoring and study questions – based instructional strategies should be adopted by mathematics teachers as instructional strategies at the Junior Secondary School level in Bayelsa State.