Improving Science Students’ Performance and Interest in Mathematics: What will be the Effect of Brainstorming Instructional Strategy secondary schools in Makurdi Metropolis?

Abstract

This paper investigated the impact of brainstorming instructional strategy on science students’ performance and interest in mathematics within secondary schools in Makurdi Metropolis. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Quasi-experimental pretest-posttest non-randomized design was used for the study. The population consisted of 10,290 Senior Secondary (SS) II students out of which 212 students offering science were randomly drawn. Mathematics Performance Test (MPT) and Mathematics Interest Inventory (MII) developed by the researchers were used to collect data. The MPT and MII were validated by two experts in mathematics education and one in measurement and evaluation with their comments incorporated to improve the instruments. The reliability coefficient of MII was computed using Cronbach alpha while that of MPT computed using Kuder-Richardson formula 20 were 0.79 and 0.86 respectively. Pre-test was done by research assistants at the first week before treatment for four weeks and post-test on the sixth week. Brainstorming instructional strategy lesson plans on Algebra were used for treatment by trained research assistants. The research questions were answered using means and standard deviations while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was employed to test the hypotheses at 0.05 significant level. The result showed significant difference between the mean academic performance scores (p = 0.000 < 0.05) of science students’ taught mathematics using brainstorming instructional strategy and conventional method in mathematics. Finding also indicated significant difference between the mean interest ratings of science students’ taught mathematics using brainstorming instructional strategy and the conventional method in mathematics (p = 0.000 < 0.05). The study recommended that teacher training institutions should ensure adequate training of mathematics teachers on the use of brainstorming instructional strategy for classroom instruction