Impact of Critical Thinking Skills and Peer Assessment on Senior Secondary School Students’ Performance in Mathematics in Delta State, Nigeria.
No Thumbnail Available
Files
Date
2014
Authors
Asuai, N.C
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The study examined the impact of Critical Thinking Skills and Peer Assessment on performance in Mathematics among senior secondary school students in Delta State. Critical Thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally in understanding the logical connections between ideas and constructs, evaluate arguments, detect inconsistent reasoning, solve problems systematically, identify the relevance of ideas, and engage in reflective and independent thinking. Peer Assessment on the other hand is an assessment method through which the peers exchange their work in order to critically examine the learning progress of each peer. This is because exchange of work gives students the opportunity to learn from one another which help in improving performance in Mathematics. Eight research questions were raised and Eight research hypotheses were equally generated to guide the study. Descriptive survey and quasi-experimental pre-test/ post-test control group designs were adopted for the study. Multi-stage sampling techniques were applied to select a sample of 212 students (113 boys and 99 girls) drawn from four schools. Three research instruments were used for the study and they were: Mathematics Performance Tests (MPT), Watson-Glasser Critical Thinking Appraisal (W-GCTA), and Peer Assessment Scale in Mathematics (PASM). Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Multiple Regression Analysis tool was used to analyse the data. All hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Results of the data analysis revealed that the participants who were exposed to training instructions performed significantly better in Mathematics than those in the control group. The study also revealed that there was no significant main effect of gender on students performance in Mathematics. Moreover, the study revealed that there was no significant main effect of age on students performance in Mathematics , the study also found out that there is no significant interaction effect of experimental conditions and gender on students performance in Mathematics. The study revealed that there is no significant interaction effect of experimental conditions and age on students performance in Mathematics. Furthermore, there is no significant interaction effect between gender and age on students performance in Mathematics. The study also found out that there no significant interaction effect between experimental conditions, gender and age on students performance in Mathematics. Finally, Critical Thinking Skills and Peer Assessment were found to have had significant linear effects on Mathematics test scores. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations were made with the hope that if implemented, the performance of students would improve. The recommendations made include: infusion of Critical Thinking Skills and Peer Assessment into the school curriculum. Critical Thinking should be made a compulsory topic in all subjects because it aids students learning especially when faced with difficult problems. Peer Assessment should be made compulsory for use by all teachers in secondary schools to enable students participate actively in the teaching and learning process which would give them opportunity to learn from one another.
Description
A Thesis Submitted to the School of Postgraduate Studies, University of Lagos.
Keywords
Critical Thinking Skills , Peer Assessment , Learning , Performance , Research Subject Categories::SOCIAL SCIENCES::Social sciences::Psychology
Citation
Asuai, N.C (2014), Impact of Critical Thinking Skills and Peer Assessment on Senior Secondary School Students’ Performance in Mathematics in Delta State, Nigeria. A Thesis Submitted to University of Lagos School of Postgraduate Studies Phd Thesis and Dissertation, 202pp.