ENHANCING RETENTION OF GEOMETRY CONCEPTS AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY STUDENTS THE ROLE OF ETHNOMATHEMATICS TEACHING STRATEGY

Abstract

The paper reports the result of a study undertaken to investigate the role of ethnomathematics teaching strategy in enhancing retention of geometry concepts among senior secondary students in Katsina Zonal Education Quality Assurance of Katsina State, Nigeria. The quasi-experimental design of the pretest, posttest, follow-up (PPF) control group type was adopted for the study. A sample of 125 students (67 male and 58 female) randomly was selected and assigned to either the experimental (27 male and 23 female) or control (40 male and 35 female) group. The experimental group were taught SSII geometry concepts using the ethnomathematics teaching strategy while the control group was taught same concepts using the conventional method. The geometry retention test, developed by the researchers, validated by experts and having a reliability co-efficient of 0.74 was used for data collection. Mean, Standard Deviation and Standard Error of the Mean were used to answer the research questions while the hypotheses were tested using ANCOVA and independent samples t-test at 0.05 level of significance. Results of the data analyses reveal that while significant difference was found between the mean retention ability scores of students taught geometry concepts using ethnomathematics teaching strategy and those taught using conventional method, no significant difference was found between the mean performance scores of the male and female students taught geometry concepts using ethnomathematics teaching strategy. Consequently, it was concluded that the use of ethnomathematics teaching strategy to teach geometry to senior secondary students has the potential to enhance their retention ability irrespective of gender differences.