INVESTIGATION OF THE DIFFICULTIES SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ENCOUNTER IN MENSURATION-BASED PROBLEM SOLVING IN LAGOS STATE
Dada, Favour Hapuruchi & Olutayo, David Olarenwaju
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Federal College of Education (Technical), Akoka, Lagos
Email: favoureddada@gmail.com; apooletayo@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The issue of failure in mathematics especially in the mensuration content of the curriculum despite its practical nature has been of great concern to all stakeholders of mathematics education. This study therefore investigated the difficulties that senior secondary school students encounter while solving problems in mensuration and the influence of gender on the level of difficulty experienced. The study adopted a descriptive survey design using quantitative methods. The sample consisted of 270 SS II students, (of which 144 were males and 126 were females) from two Education Districts in Lagos State. Three instruments; students’ diagnostic test in mensuration, questionnaire in mensuration for students and questionnaire in mensuration for teachers with reliability coefficients of 0.82, 0.76 and 0.88 respectively were used for data collection. Data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Results showed that students’ level of understanding in mensuration was low. It was found that the numerous difficulties that students encounter generally fall into categories; formulae, concept, language and procedure, and skills related difficulties. Acting subtly and indirectly compounding the level of difficulties encountered were some affective factors categorized as psychologically related difficulties. However, gender did not significantly influence the level of difficulty encountered. It was recommended that mathematics teachers should pay attention to these students’ difficulties during instruction. This will enable them to tackle the difficulties and consequently improve students’ achievement in mensuration and by extension, in mathematics.Key words: difficulties, mensuration, problem solving, gender