Assessing Senior Secondary School Students’ Mathematical Proficiency as Related to Gender and Performance in Mathematics in Nigeria
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2017
Authors
Awofala, A. O. A.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The study investigated mathematical proficiency as related to gender and
performance in mathematics among 400 Nigerian senior secondary school
students from 10 elitist senior secondary schools in Lagos State using the
quantitative research method within the blueprint of descriptive survey design.
Data collected were analysed using the descriptive statistics of frequency,
percentage, mean, and standard deviation and inferential statistics of independent
samples t-test, and multiple regression analysis. Findings revealed that senior
secondary school students from the elitist schools showed high level of
mathematical proficiency. There were significant possible correlations among
senior secondary school students‟ conceptual understanding, procedural fluency,
strategic competence, adaptive reasoning, productive disposition and
performance in mathematics. While gender differences in mathematical
proficiency are no longer important and are dissipating even at the subscale level
there are subtle gender differences in performance in mathematics in this study.
Gender, conceptual understanding, productive disposition, adaptive reasoning,
strategic competence and procedural fluency made statistically significant
contributions to the variance in senior secondary school students‟ performance in
mathematics. Based on this base line study, it was thus, recommended that future
studies in Nigeria should investigate the mathematical proficiency of non-elitist
schools which dominated the length and breadth of this country so as to
generalize the results of this study
Description
Keywords
Mathematical proficiency, Mathematics performance, Gender, Nigeria