EFFECT OF TWO META-COGNITIVE STRATEGIES ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT AND RETENTION IN GEOMETRY
ABSTRACT
The study investigated the effect of two meta-cognitive strategies on students’ achievement and retention in geometry. Influence of gender as well as the interaction effects of the teaching strategies and gender was also investigated in the study. Six research questions were posed and six null hypotheses were formulated to guide the conduct of the study. The study employed factorial research design. The population of this study consists of 3,606 senior secondary one (SS1) mathematics students in Nsukka Education Zone of Enugu State. This population is made up of 1493 males and 2113 female students. The sample size of 256 SS 1 mathematics students was used for the study. The sample was obtained using multistage sampling technique. Geometry Achievement Test (GAT) developed by the researcher was used to collect the pertinent data for the study. GAT contained 40 test items with options ranged from A-D from which the students are expected to select the option that best answered the question. The instrument was validated by three experts in the Department of Science Education (Measurement and Evaluation and Mathematics Education Units) all in Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. To ensure the content validity of GAT, table of specification was used in the construction of the test items. To determine the reliability of the instrument, the researcher administered 25 copies of the instrument to SS 1 Mathematics students of Community Secondary School Obollo-Afor in Udenu Local Government Area of Enugu State who are not part of the study. The scores obtained from the students were used to determine the internal consistency and reliability co-efficient of 0.92 was obtained using Kuder-Richardson (KR-20) formula. The data collected from the study were analyzed using means and standard deviations to answer the research questions and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that (1) Collaborative learning strategy significantly enhanced students’ academic achievement in geometry when compared with problem solving strategy; (2) Gender did not significantly influence students’ achievement in geometry; (3) The interaction effect of teaching strategies and gender on students’ achievement in geometry was not significant; (4) Collaborative learning strategy was also found to significantly enhanced students’ retention in geometry when compared with problem solving strategy; (5) Gender was not a significant factor on students’ retention in geometry; and (6) There was no significant interaction effect of teaching strategy and gender on students’ retention in geometry.