Impact of Language of Instruction on Achievement in Mathematics among Secondary School Students in Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of language of instruction on achievement in Mathematics among secondary school students in Kwara State, Nigeria. A pretest posttest control quasi experimental design was adopted for the study. Two research questions were answered and two research hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Simple random sampling was used to select four secondary schools in Kwara South educational Zone, which were randomly assigned to experimental and control group. A total of 205 senior secondary school II students consisting of 97 males and 108 females were used for the study. The Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT) in word problem developed by the researcher was the instrument used far data collection. It was validated and tested for reliability using Pearson product moment correlation coefficient. A reliability coefficient of 0.95 was obtained pretest was given to the two groups before treatment to know their entry behavior. Posttest was given to the two groups after being taught word problem concepts for four consecutive periods to test for their academic Irachievement. The result shows that the group taught using Yoruba language (experimental group) performed better than students' taught with the convectional teaching method which' is the control group. On the gender related issue, there was no significant difference in the mean sores of male and female students taught using Yoruba language. Based on the findings, it was recommended that the use of Yoruba language should be encourage in teaching and learning of Mathematics and other science subjects because of its positive impacts oiri boosting students' academic achievement.