Effects of Collaborative Learning Strategy on Senior Secondary Students’ Interest and Achievement in Mathematics Word Problems in Jos Metropolis, Plateau State, Nigeria

This study investigated the effects of collaborative learning strategy on senior secondary students’ interest and achievement in Mathematics word problems (MWP) in Jos Metropolis, Plateau State, Nigeria. The study adopted the quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test design. The population was all Senior Secondary Two (SSII) students of public secondary schools in Jos Metropolis, Plateau State, Nigeria numbering 2906, out of whom 102 students of intact classes of two schools were used as sample subjects. One intact class from one of the sample schools comprising 57 students (28 males, 29 females) was assigned to the experimental group while the other from another school consisting of 45 students (21 males, 24 females) was assigned to the control group. The instruments used for the study were Mathematics Word Problems Interest Questionnaire (MWPIQ) used to determine the interest of the students, and Mathematics Word Problems Achievement Test (MWPAT) used to establish their achievement in Mathematics word problems. Both instruments were prepared by the researchers and were confirmed to be valid and reliable by the judgment of four experts. Both experimental and control groups were exposed to pre-test which confirmed their equivalence before commencing the treatment. The treatment lasted six weeks within which the experimental group was taught MWP using the collaborative learning strategy and the control group was taught the same using the conventional learning method. After treatment, both groups were exposed to post-test on both items. Data collected were analysed using mean, standard deviation and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). Findings showed that the experimental group gained more interest and achieved higher than their control group counterparts in both instruments. In terms of gender, findings revealed that there was no significant difference in interest and achievement between the male and female students who were taught MWP using the collaborative learning strategy. Therefore, collaborative learning strategy is gender friendly. It is therefore recommended to adopt collaborative learning strategy in teaching MWP and other Mathematics genres.