SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’LEARNING STYLE, SELF-REGULATED LEARNING SKILL AND ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION AS PREDICTORS OF THEIR MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT IN IMO STATE
SOURCE:
Faculty: Education
Department: Science Education
CONTRIBUTORS:
Duru, D.C;
Okeke, S.O.C;
ABSTRACT:
Mathematics is necessary for industrial and technological developments of any society. The noticeable poor mathematics achievement has necessitated the investigation of the relative and combined contributions of learning styles, self-regulated learning skill and achievement motivation as predictors of students’ achievement in mathematics in Imo State. A correlational survey research design was employed. The population of this study was made up of 17,635 senior secondary class two (SS2) students in the six Education Zones in Imo State. The sample size for the study comprised of 882 SS2 students randomly selected from 14 out of 124 public senior secondary schools in Owerri Education Zone of Imo State. Three different instruments were used namely, Barsch Learning Inventory (BLI), Questionnaire on Self-Regulated Learning (QSRL) and Achievement Motivation Scale (AMS). The cumulative average scores of students results were used as their academic achievement scores. Three experts validated the instrument. The Cronbach Alpha calculated yielded reliability coefficients of 0.85, 0.89 and 0.81 for BLSI, QSRL and AMS respectively. The data collected were analyzed using Pearson Product-moment correlation co-efficient and multiple regression analysis with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. The findings revealed that learning style, self-regulated learning skill and achievement motivation (individually and jointly) significantly predicts students’ achievement in Mathematics. However, learning style is the best predictor variable to students’ achievement in Mathematics while achievement motivation is the least predictor variable. More so, students’ learning style, self-regulated learning skill and achievement motivation jointly accounted for only about 2.3% of the variance observed in mathematics achievement scores of students. It was recommended among others that secondary school students should regulate their learning and adopt appropriate learning styles to increase their mathematics achievement.