INVESTIGATING SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ BELIEFS ABOUT FURTHER MATHEMATICS IN A PROBLEMBASED LEARNING CONTEXT
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Date
2014
Authors
Awofala, A. O. A.
Arigbabu, Abayomi A.
Mogari, David
Fatade, Alfred O.
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Abstract
The study investigated the effect of problem-based learning
(PBL) on senior secondary school students’ beliefs about Further Mathematics
in Nigeria within the blueprint of pre-test-post-test non-equivalent control
group quasi-experimental design. Intact classes were used and in all, 96 students participated in the study (42 in the experimental group taught with the
PBL and 54 in the control group taught using the Traditional Method (TM)).
One research instrument tagged Beliefs about Further Mathematics Questionnaire (BFMQ, Cronbach alpha (α)=.86) was developed and used for the study
and data collected were analysed using the descriptive statistics of mean and
standard deviation which served as precursor to testing the null hypothesis for
the study using an independent samples t-test and analysis of variance. Results showed that participants held strong beliefs about further mathematics and
there was a statistically significant difference in the mean post-treatment
scores on BFMQ (t=-6.22, p=.000 for t-test) and (F(1,95)=38.49; p<.001 for
ANOVA) between students exposed to the PBL and those exposed to the TM,
in favour of the PBL group. Based on the results, the study recommended that
PBL should be adopted as an instructional strategy for promoting meaningful
learning in and enhancing beliefs about further mathematics and efforts should
be made to integrate the philosophy of PBL into the preservice teachers’ curriculum at the teacher-preparation institutions in Nigeria
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Keywords
problem-based learning, traditional method, further mathematics, beliefs about further mathematics