Examining Personalisation of Instruction, Attitudes toward and Achievement in Mathematics Word Problems among Nigerian Senior Secondary School Students

Abstract

To cite this article:Awofala, Adeneye, O.A. (2014). Examining personalisation of instruction, attitudes toward and achievement in mathematics word problems among Nigerian senior secondary school students. International Journal of Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology, 2(4),[273][274][275][276][277][278][279][280][281][282][283][284][285][286][287][288] This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.Authors alone are responsible for the contents of their articles. The journal owns the copyright of the articles.The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of the research material. AbstractThis study investigated the effect of a personalised print-based instruction versus a non-personalised print-based instruction on the attitudes toward mathematics word problems of 350 senior secondary school year one Nigerian students within the blueprint of a quantitative research of pre-treatment-intervention-post-treatment non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental design with a survey design of an ex-post facto type. The Attitudes toward Mathematics Word Problem Inventory (ATMWPI) and Achievement in Mathematics Word Problem Test (AMWPT) were used to collect data relating to the dependent measures. The results of the data analyses showed that the personalised instruction students had higher levels of self-confidence, liking, usefulness, and motivation but recorded low level of anxiety regarding mathematics word problems compared with the non-personalised group students. While the personalised instruction students were more influenced by the context of the word problem than their non-personalised instruction counterparts, the experimental and control groups' students did differ on their attitudes toward mathematics word problem as a male domain. In addition, self-confidence, liking, usefulness, motivation, context, and treatment had statistically significant predictive effect on achievement in mathematics word problem whereas anxiety and male domain dimensions of attitudes toward mathematics word problem had no statistically significant predictive effect on achievement in mathematics word problem.

Effect of Personalisation of Instruction on Students’ Motivation to learn Mathematics Word Problems in Nigeria

“…This result showed the more facilitative potential of personalised strategy to enhance motivation in mathematics word problems over the non-personalised instruction thereby supporting the advocates of personalisation strategy (Ku & Sullivan, 2002). The significant main effect of treatment is consistent with several results on personalisation studies (Awofala, 2014;Awofala, 2011;Awofala, Balogun & Olagunju, 2011;Awofala, 2010;Akinsola & Awofala, 2009;Akinsola & Awofala, 2008;Anand & Ross, 1987;Murphy & Ross, 1990, Lopez & Sullivan, 1992. However, this significant effect in favour of personalisation is inconsistent with some results obtained as well (Choi & Hannafin, 1997;Ku & Sullivan, 2000;Bates & Wiest, 2004).…”

“…It is noted that problem context is relative and as used here refers to the familiarity/nonfamiliarity of the word problem to students" experience and interest (Awofala, 2014).…”

“…Previous studies have indicated the positive effects of personalisation on achievement in word problems (Awofala, 2011;Awofala, Balogun & Olagunju, 2011;Akinsola & Awofala, 2009;Akinsola & Awofala 2008), attitudes toward word problem (Awofala, 2010;Awofala, 2014), interest (Awofala, Fatade, & Olaoluwa, 2013;Hart, 1996), motivation (Cordova & Lepper, 1996) and self-efficacy (Akinsola & Awofala, 2009), and other studies did not show any positive effects of personalisation on some of these variables (Bates & Wiest, 2004;Anzelmo-Skelton, 2006;Şimşek & Çakır, 2009). …”

“…Results showed that both the individualised and group personalisation treatments were significantly higher than the non-personalised version for the two-step mathematics performance and attitudes. Awofala (2014) investigated the effect of a personalised print-based instruction versus a non-personalised print-based instruction on the attitudes toward mathematics word problems of 350 senior secondary school year one Nigerian students. The results of the data analyses showed that the personalised instruction students had higher levels of selfconfidence, liking, usefulness, and motivation but recorded low level of anxiety regarding mathematics word problems compared with the non-personalised group students.…”

Investigating the Effect of Origami Instruction on Preservice Teachers’ Spatial Ability and Geometric Knowledge for Teaching

“…This implies other independent variables accounted for the rest of the unexplained multivariate variance in the study. Awofala (2014) claimed that aside teaching methods, independent variables such as attitudes, environmental and psychological variables could also account for variance in dependent variable like achievement scores. Nonetheless, according to Cohen (1988), an effect size greater than 10% is practically significant and hence supports the argument (Fenyvesi, Budinski & Lavicza, 2014;Arici & Aslan-Tutak, 2013;Golan, 2011;Golan, & Jackson, 2009) that origami instruction could be superior to the conventional instruction on shape and space.…”