EFFECT OF CREATIVE TEACHING STRATEGY IN ELIMINATING MATHEMATICS THREATS AMONG THE SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Mathematics is considered a core subject at universal level. Unfortunately, learners always face difficulty in learning mathematics. Most of the students fear even to hear about the subject mathematics. There is a stereotype threat in mathematics among the students that mathematics is a difficult subject, and it could not be picked up or grasped so easily by everyone and it is not a cup of tea of everyone and so on. This notion pulls back the mathematical achievement of the students in general. The investigators felt immense need to find out the effect of creative teaching strategy in eliminating mathematics stereotype threat among the secondary school students and thereby techniques to increase students’ interest, attitude towards mathematics and learning achievement in mathematics. Stereotype threat in mathematics is a situational predicament in which people feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group regarding the subject mathematics, like mathematics is the most difficult and abstract subject, boys/girls cannot follow mathematics easily, mathematics teachers are very strict and sensitive etc. Creative teaching strategy means an innovative way of teaching where the teacher uses novel ideas and techniques to transform the learning content to students in an innovative way and thereby achieve students’ attention, interest and arouse curiosity for further learning. Design of the study is pre-test & post-test equivalent group design, where 30 students from the secondary school were selected in an experimental sample and 30 students were in control group Sample was selected after identifying the students who faced the problem of mathematics stereotype threat through the administration of mathematics stereotype threat scale. Then the investigators provided treatment to the experimental group through 10 creative mathematics lessons. A post-test was administered after the completion of treatment to identify the effect of creative Teaching strategy in eliminating mathematical threats among secondary school students. Statistical techniques such as t-test were applied. This study provides a route map to mathematics teachers and students on how to improve the mathematics achievement of students by eliminating the stereotype threat developed among them.