EFFECTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN MATHEMATICS IN NNEWI EDUCATION ZONE, ANAMBRA STATE.

Abstract

The study embarked upon the Effects of cooperative learning Strategies on secondary school students’ academic achievement in mathematics in Nnewi Education zone. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Quasi-experimental research design was adopted, specifically the pretest-posttest non-equivalent control group design was used. The population of the study was 4,444 senior secondary one students’ in Nnewi Education zone out of which a sample size of 150 students was drawn using multi-stage sampling procedure. The instrument for data collection was Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT) validated by three experts; two lecturers in faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka and one experienced secondary school mathematics teacher. The reliability of MAT was established using Kudder-Richardson formula (KR20) with internal consistency of 0.73. The Experimental groups were taught mathematics using cooperative while the control group was taught using conventional lecture method. Data were collected by administering the instrument as pretest and posttest to generate data for the study. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation. Analysis of Covariance was used to test the null hypotheses. The findings from the results showed that students taught mathematics using cooperative learning strategies performed better than the conventional lecture method in improving secondary school students’ achievement in mathematics in Nnewi Education Zone. Gender has no effect on students’ academic achievement in mathematics when taught with cooperative. It was recommended that mathematics teachers should adopt the use of cooperative learning strategy in the teaching and learning process of mathematics for effective achievement by secondary school students among others.