MISCONCEPTIONS IN SECONDARY SCHOOL GEOMETRY AMONG STUDENTS IN NSUKKA EDUCATION ZONE OF ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
This study was designed to explore the misconceptions in secondary school geometry among students. Four research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted ex-post facto design and was restricted to Nsukka education zone of Enugu state. Six hundred SS 1 students selected through stratified random sampling were involved in the study. The instrument for data collection was a Geometry Diagnostic Test (G.D.T) which made use of both essay-type and multiple-choice questions. The scores obtained from the multiple-choice questions were subjected to reliability test using Kudder-Richardson (K-R 20) while the scores from the essay-type questions were subjected to reliability test using Scorer reliability. The formulated research questions for the study were answered using frequency and percentages, while the formulated hypotheses were tested by the use of Mann-Whitney U test. The result of the study revealed the misconceptions the students encountered in the study of SS1 geometry. The result of the study also revealed that gender has no significant influence on students’ misconceptions in geometry while school location has significant influence on students’ misconceptions in geometry with students from rural schools having the greater misconceptions in geometry than the urban students. Based on these findings, the researcher recommended among others that mathematics teachers in the rural areas should encourage the students to study mathematics paying more attention to geometry and devote more time and effort to teaching and learning of SS1 geometry as this will help the students in the rural schools measure up with their urban counterparts in the study of mathematics particularly in geometry.