COMPUTATIONAL AND PROJECT-BASED TEACHING STRATEGIES AND STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN MATHEMATICS IN IKOT ABASI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

ABSTRACT The study was carried out to determine the efficacy of computational and project-based teaching strategies on secondary school students’ academic performance in Mathematics. In order to achieve this purpose, three objectives, three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The design for the study was quasi-experimental design. The population for the study consists of all the 4930 Junior Secondary one (JS1) Mathematics students in all the public secondary schools in Ikot Abasi Local Government Area. The sample of this study consisted of 75 JS1 Mathematics students drawn from two public secondary schools in Ikot Abasi Local Government Area. A researcher-made instrument tagged Mathematics Performance Test (MPT) was employed for obtaining data for the study. The instrument was subjected to face and content validity. A reliability coefficient of .84 was obtained for the instrument using Kuder-Richardson 20 formula. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions while independent t-test was used for testing the hypotheses. The findings of this study showed that there is no significant difference between the mean performance scores of students taught Numbers and Numeration using computational teaching strategy and those taught using project-based teaching strategy; there is no significant difference between the mean performance scores of male and female students taught Numbers and Numeration using computational teaching strategy; and there is no significant difference between the mean performance scores of male and female students taught Numbers and Numeration using project-based teaching strategy. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that both computational and project-based teaching strategies enhance secondary school students’ academic performance in Mathematics. It was recommended among others that, Private individuals should partner with the school authorities to train teachers on the use of computational and project-based teaching strategies to enhance teaching and learning.