Effect of experiential instructional approach on senior secondary school students' achievements in Algebra in Ebonyi State

Mathematics is generally considered a fundamental base for preparation to life and for functionality of every citizen of any nation in any career. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of experiential instructional approach on senior secondary school (SSS) II students’ achievements in Algebra in Abakaliki education zone of Ebonyi State. Specifically, the study determined effect of experiential instructional approach on SSS II students' mean achievement scores in Algebra, effect of experiential instructional approach on male and female SSII students' mean achievement scores in Algebra and the interaction effect of gender and methods on the SSS II students' mean achievement scores in Algebra. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The study employed a non-equivalent control group quasi-experiential design. A sample of 210 SSS II students from 4 coeducational SSS was used with their intact classes. Out of the four schools, two schools were simple randomly assigned to treatment group while the remaining two schools to the control group. Algebra achievement test (AAT) with reliability coefficient of 0.85 was the instrument for data collection. The data was analyzed using mean, standard deviation and analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA). The result revealed that students taught with experiential instructional approach achieved better than the students taught with the conventional approach with a mean of 29.89 and 24.52 respectively. The study also revealed that males taught with experiential approach showed higher achievement with a mean of 31.08 than the females with a mean of 28.34, but the difference in the mean achievement of males and females taught using the method was not statistically significant. There was no significant interaction effect between gender and instructional methods on the students’ achievement in Algebra. The study, therefore recommended that experiential instructional approach be adopted in our school system and that there is need for an urgent curriculum review to include experiential approach as a teaching method for mathematics.