Mathematical Visualization and Senior Secondary School Students’ Performance in Solving Real-World Problems

Abstract

 The research investigated the effect of mathematical visualization on the academic performance of senior secondary school students’ in solving real-world problems. The study incorporated two objectives. Pretest, posttest quasi-experimental design that presented one experimental and one control group was used. Simple random sampling technique was used to draw 176 government-owned senior secondary school two (SS2) students from a population of two thousand five hundred and ten. The instrument used for data collection was a validated instrument titled Mathematical Visualization Achievement Test. The instrument was 0.83 reliable using Kuder-Richardson Formula 21. The experimental group was taught how to solve real-world problem with mathematical visualization while the control group was taught with deductive teaching method. Analysis was done with mean, standard deviation and analysis of covariance at 0.05 significant level. The result showed that there was a significant difference between the performance of students taught with mathematical visualization and those taught without mathematical visualization. However, there was no significant difference between the students taught with mathematical visualization based on gender. It was recommended that Mathematics teachers should incorporate mathematical visualization when teaching students Mathematics.