Evaluation of the nexus between student attitude, teacher teaching methods, and achievement in junior secondary school mathematics

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship among students’ attitudes, teachers’ teaching methods, and mathematics achievement in Lagos State, Nigeria. The study employed a correlational research design. The population consisted of all the public junior secondary school students in Lagos State. The stratified sampling technique was used to select 30 junior secondary schools across the six education districts in the state, and the simple random sampling technique was used to select 900 students from the selected schools. Participants completed standardised instruments: the Student Attitude Questionnaire (α=0.77), the Teacher Teaching Methods Questionnaire (α=0.92), and the Mathematics Achievement Test (α=0.89). The data collected were analysed using frequency, percentage, Pearson product moment correlation, and multiple regression at α=0.05. The majority of the respondents (75 %) were between 12 and 15 years old, of which 341 were boys and 342 were girls. There is a low positive significant relationship between students’ attitudes and students’ mathematics achievement (r=0.24) and between teachers’ teaching methods and students’ mathematics achievement (r=0.17). The multiple correlation coefficients (R) of all the variables were 0.25. The adjusted R2, which estimates the variance of the dependent variable measured, was 0.06. This implies that all the independent variables students’ attitudes and teachers’ teaching methods—made a 6 % contribution to the variance in students’ achievement in mathematics (F=29.029). It is recommended that students be motivated to have the right attitude towards mathematics and that appropriate teaching methods be employed throughout the teaching-learning process.