IMPACT OF POLYA’S PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGY ON ATTITUDE, PERFORMANCE AND RETENTION IN ALGEBRA AMONG JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ZAMFARA STATE, NIGERIA
IMPACT OF POLYA’S PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGY ON ATTITUDE, PERFORMANCE AND RETENTION IN ALGEBRA AMONG JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ZAMFARA STATE, NIGERIA
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2019-10
Authors
HARUNA, Nasiru Anka
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This study investigated the Impact of Polya‟s Problem Solving Strategy on Attitude,
Performance and Retention in Algebra among Junior Secondary School Students in Zamfara
State, Nigeria. Quasi-experimental and Control group design involving pretest, posttest and postpost-
test was used for the study. The population for this study consisted of all the public junior
secondary school three students in one hundred and eighty (180) schools under ZSTSB that are
in four Education Zones of Zamfara State. The total enrollement figure in the schools consisted
of 27,357 students. Eight out of one-hundred and eighty schools in the four Education Zones
were selected by balloting method. Four schools were assigned to experimental groups and the
other four as control groups. One intact class was drawn from each of the eight selected schools
by balloting method, giving a total of 463 JSSIII students used for the study. The experimental
group had 235 students while the control group had 228 students. The experimental groups were
taught by Polya‟s problem solving strategy and the control groups were taught by conventional
method. The experimental period lasted for six weeks. The instruments used for data collection
were SLEWPPT, SLEPT and ASAIQ. These instruments were validated by five specialists in
mathematics education and one specialist in language education. The reliability coefficients of
SLEPT and ASAIQ were computed and found to be 0.792 and 0.826 respectively. Six research
questions and six corresponding null hypotheses were formulated and used to test the
significance at 0.05 . The independent sample t-test and Mann-Whitney U test were used for
data analysis. Findings from the study showed that students in the experimental group performed
significantly better than those in the control group. It also revealed that experimental group
significantly achieved positive attitude than the control group; also the retention level of students
in the experimental group significantly exceed those of the control groups. The results also
indicated that males in the experimental group had better attitude and performed significantly
better than females. From the findings of this study, it was concluded that Polya‟s problem
solving strategy was effective in promoting students‟ attitude and performance in algebra than
the conventional method. In addition, students taught algebra with Polya‟s problem solving
strategy in small groups have better attitude and performance than students taught algebra with
conventional method. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among other
things that State Government should train mathematics teachers in the effective use of Polya‟s
problem solving strategy in teaching various mathematical topics through series of workshops
and seminars in order to improve the attitude performance and retention of students in
mathematics at the secondary level.
Description
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE EDUCATION,
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY,
ZARIA, NIGERIA
Keywords
IMPACT,, POLYA’S PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGY,, ATTITUDE,, PERFORMANCE,, RETENTION,, ALGEBRA,, JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS,, ZAMFARA STATE,, NIGERIA.