European Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol.36 No.3 (2009), pp.336-341 EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2009 http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.

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Students Attitude Towards Mathematics and Academic Achievement in Some Selected Secondary Schools in Southwestern Nigeria
YARA, Philias Olatunde Kampala International University,Western campus, Bushenyi-Ishaka Uganda E-mail: philiasyara@gmail.com Tel: +256-783104687 Abstract Attitude of students can be influenced by the attitude of the teacher and his method of teaching. Studies carried out have shown that the teachers method of mathematics teaching and his personality greatly accounted for the students positive attitude towards mathematics and that, without interest and personal effort in learning mathematics by the students, they can hardly perform well in the subject. The study adopted the descriptive survey design using simple frequency and percentages in analysing the data. 1542 senior secondary two students randomly selected from 2 schools in each of the senatorial districts from the six states in the Southwestern part of Nigeria were used. One instrument (SAT) was used while three research questions were answered in the study. The results showed that the students attitudes towards mathematics were positive and that many of them believed that mathematics is a worthwhile and necessary subject which can help them in their future career. It is recommended that the teacher should develop positive relationship with students and stress classroom activities that involves active teaching- learning process and students participation in the class. Stakeholders should organize periodic seminars and workshops for students, parents and teachers designed to promote positive attitudes towards mathematics. Keywords: Student Attitude, Mathematics Achievement, Southwestern Nigeria, Senior Secondary.

Introduction
Attitude towards science denotes interest or feeling towards studying science. It is the students disposition towards like or dislike science while attitude in science means scientific approach assumed by an individual for solving problems, assessing ideas and making decisions. Review of relevant literature depicts varying opinions and findings on the students attitude towards science and their performances. According to Keeves (1992) and Postlethwaite and Wiley (1991), attitudes towards science are, in general, highly favoured, indicating strong support for science and the learning of science. There is also consistency across countries and age levels within a country, in the average level of attitude towards science by students. The researchers however concluded that there is marked decline in attitude towards science between the ten-years old and fourteen-years old levels. Greenfield (1995), Parker, Revinue and Fraser (1996), Mullis, Martin, Beaton, Gonsale, Kelly and Smith (1998) in their findings revealed that in countries where there was an emergent thirst for

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industrial and technological development, there were very favourable attitudes towards science. However, in countries where a high level of technological and industrial development had been achieved, the findings showed that attitude towards science were more neutral. Generally, boys held more fovourable attitude towards science, the findings concluded. Keeves (1992) asserted that attitude towards science are known to decrease as students progress through their schooling years. He further submitted that attributes such as enthusiasm, respect for students and personality traits have been shown to influence students attitude towards science as well as in other subjects. The implication of Keeves findings is that attention should be given to science teaching early so as to enable students have favourable disposition towards science later in life. OBrien and Porter (1994) in their study on the impact of a scheme of intervention projects on girls attitudes to Physics in Ireland came up with the following findings among others that (1) students in project schools were found to have similar attitudes to Physics than those in control schools. (2) students in the co-educational schools tend to have more negative attitudes than those in the single-set schools, (3) there is relationship between the size of school and the attitudes of students to Physics. In general, the larger the school, the more negative the attitudes of students. (4) at the other extreme, students in small schools also have more negative attitudes. Studies in Nigeria, however, including that of Alao (1988) examined six attitudinal dimensions and their effects on students achievement. The dimensions were: (i) social implications of science, (ii) attitude towards scientific inquiry, (iii) normality of scientists, (iv) enjoyment of science and science lessons, (v) leisure interest in science and career interest in science. The result of the study revealed that students have positive attitudes towards sciences, Mathematics inclusive. Odunusi (1994) in assessing the attitude of some science students towards modern orientation in science found that students attitude to science is negative while gender and class level of the students did not significantly influence students attitude towards science. Obioha (1987) when describing Nigeria situation, opined that schools in Nigeria have come a long way from no science in schools to almost compulsory science programmes at all levels and yet the younger generation do not particularly want to study science. The reason for this view is not far-fetched. The social values in the country nowadays have diverted students attention and interest from learning science to other goodies of life. Onafowokan (1998) differs in her report of two separate studies carried out by Schunert (1951) and Einburg (1995) when she linked higher achievement in science to positive attitude on the part of the students. In his own contribution, Hurd (1984) while reporting on the state of pre-college education in Mathematics and Science in the United States of America, described the situation as worrisome in the sense that students do not particularly like science and the dislike is acquired early in life. Bloom (1976) found that twenty-five percent (25%) of the variance in achievement could be attributed to pupils attitude towards science. Kempa and Dude (1974) reported that pupils interest in science is associated with their achievement in science. Corroborating these reports, Olatoye (2001) found that students attitude towards science have significant direct effect on student achievement in the subject. Adesokan (2002) and Onwu (1981) asserted that in spite of the recognition given to Chemistry among the science subjects, it is evident that students still show negative attitude towards the subject thereby leading to poor performance and low enrolments. Bolaji (2005) in a study of the influence of students attitude towards mathematics found that the teachers method of mathematics teaching and his personality greatly accounted for the students positive attitude towards mathematics. Despite these diverse views and reports on attitude towards science and student achievement, attempts have been made to improve students attitudes and achievements. Researchers including

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Herzog (1994, 1996, 1997) developed and evaluated some of such strategies directed at improving students attitudes to science subjects which include a strong relation between science contents and students everyday experiences (Labudde, 1993, 1996 and Gerbain, 1998); learning opportunities to integrate difference pre-existing knowledge, a variation in teaching methods, enhancing co-operation and communication in the classroom and training of teachers. Not only this, students need to develop the attitudes and habits of mind that are considered for meaningful work in science and technology. These include commitment to accuracy, precision and integrity on observation, experimentation and respect for evidence, concern for the observance of safety procedures, respect for living things and environment and many others (The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8, 1988). Burstein (1992) in a comparative study of factors influencing mathematics achievement found out that there is a direct link between students attitudes towards mathematics and student outcomes. He also found that 25% in England and 26% in Norway accounted for the variation in students attitude towards mathematics that were due to student gender, maternal expectation, expectations of the students friends, and success attribution (belief about success in mathematics). Student beliefs and attitudes have the potential to either facilitate or inhibit learning. Gibbons, Kimmel and OShea (1997) opined that students attitudes about the value of learning science may be considered as both an input and outcome variable because their attitudes towards the subject can be related to educational achievement in ways that reinforce higher or lower performance. This means that those students who do well in a subject generally have more positive attitudes towards that subject and those who have more positive attitudes towards a subject tend to perform better in that subject. A critical look into the above cited studies indicated that there are conflicting reports concerning the relationship between students attitudes and academic achievement. It is against this background that the present study will, in part establish the relationship, if any, between students attitude and academic achievement in mathematics.

Research Questions
The following questions were answered in this study. 1. What is the relationship between students attitude towards mathematics and academic achievement? 2. Do students love mathematics for the sake of the subject? 3. Why do students hate mathematics?

Methodology
The study adopted the descriptive survey design using frequency and percentages for the analysis. The instrument used was Student Attitude Scale(SAT) which was adapted from the modified FennemaSherman Mathematics Attitude Scales. It was divided into two sections with Section A dealing with the biographic data of the students like their names, class, school name, state, local government area, sex and age. Section B consists of 22 items made up of 11 positively worded and 11 negatively worded items to which the students were expected to respond by expressing their level of agreement or otherwise on a four-point scale of Strongly Agree(SA) rated 4, Agree(A) rated 3, Disagree(D) rated 2 and Strongly Disagree (SD) rated 1. The instrument was administered to 50 SS II students in 3 different schools who were not part of the target population and the Cronbach alpha value obtained was 0.82 which showed that the instrument was reliable and can be used for the study.

Results and Discussions

The results showed that 1458 students representing 83.3% agreed that they liked solving mathematics while 84 students representing 16.7% did not agree that they liked solving mathematics. These results showed that majority of the students liked solving mathematics while very few students do not like

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solving mathematics. On the question Knowing mathematics will help me earn a living, 1366 students representing 78.0% agreed with this view while 173 representing 22.0% did not agree with this question which indicates that without mathematics they can earn a living. On the question I dont think I can do well in mathematics, 301 students representing 17.2% did say that they strongly agreed while 1241 representing 82.8% said that they did not agree with this view. This showed that most of the students believed that they can do well in mathematics since only 301 students agreed with this view. 303 students representing 17.4% agreed that mathematics will not be important to them in future while 1239 students representing 82.6% did not agree with this view which is an indication that mathematics will be very important to them in their future endeavours. On the question of mathematics being a very difficult subject, 569 students representing 32.6% did agree with view while 973 students representing 67.4% did not agree with this question. This implies that to the students under review, mathematics is not a difficult subject. Majority of the students (1291) representing 70.4% agreed that there are too many facts to learn in mathematics while 251 students representing 29.6% did not agree with this view. This implies that to learn mathematics, one must be ready to learn a lot of things and be attentive while learning these facts. Majority of the students (1342, 76.7%) believed that mathematics helped them to develop good reasoning ability. Most of the students (1291, 73.8%) do not agree that attending mathematics class was a waste of time while few of the students (228, 26.2%) did strongly agreed that it was a waste of time to attend mathematics class. 1231 students representing 70.4% agreed that mathematics teaches them to be logical in thinking while 258 students representing 29.6% did not agree. The views expressed here by these students are in consonance with the idea of Skemp(1989) who sees mathematics as a particularly powerful and concentrated example of the functioning of human intelligence. 1005 students representing 65.2% do not agree that mathematics is too technical for them to understand while 537 students representing 34.8% agreed that the subject is too technical for them to understand. 1283 students representing 73.3% did not agree with the question that mathematics is not useful in the society while 259 students representing 26.7% agreed that mathematics is not useful in the society. The usefulness of mathematics in everyday life is obvious in areas like measuring, estimating the prices of goods when shopping, cooking, sewing, woodwork. Understanding of percent, large numbers and basic statistics are essential in order to understand information in newspapers and school books. As adults, we need to be able to calculate taxes, compare payment methods, figure out loans and home budgets. Algebra helps to develop thinking and is necessary to study science, electronics, physics, commerce, medicine, accountancy, economics and other subjects. The contributions that mathematical knowledge and skills have made to economic, industrial and technological growth of modern world are quite obvious to almost everyone. It enters into all areas of human activities. The importance of mathematics does not only lie in its contributions to scientific and technological development but also in its utility in day-to-day interactions at the market places, transportations, business of all sorts by both literate and illiterate members of the society. Mathematics is needed in the world today much more than before since a lot of equipment based on digital development is going on and calculations are becoming much more complex. Hence we cannot escape mathematics because there is real value in and real-life applications for mathematics. On the question of mathematics being made compulsory in schools, 1212 students representing 79.2% agreed that the subject should be made compulsory while 330 students representing 20.8% are of the opinion that the subject should not be made compulsory in schools. The importance of mathematics in daily life and its contribution to mankind has given the subject the prominence it enjoys among other school subjects. This has earned it the status of the core subject in the school curriculum at both primary and secondary levels and that is why the Federal Government of Nigeria has made it a compulsory subject in the Primary and Secondary schools (National Policy on Education, 2004, section 4(19) page 17).

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Knowing too much of mathematics can be dangerous was one of the questions that was asked. 1061 students representing 72.5% did not agree with this statement while 481 students representing 27.5% did agree with this statement. Only 172 students representing 9.9% did not agree with the statement that mathematics is a worthwhile and necessary subject while 1370 students representing 90.1% strongly agreed that the subject is a worthwhile and necessary subject. This is agreement with the opinion of Toumasis (1993) that sees mathematics knowledge as essential not only for living effectively in the society but also for making useful contributions towards the development of ones environment. 618 students representing 35.3% believed that mathematics does not challenge us to find out why things happen while 924 students representing 64.7% are of the view that mathematics challenges us to find out why things happen. The opinion of Fehr (1996) that mathematics has been found to be very important because it is needed for all scientific and technological research and technical training is in agreement with the views expressed by the findings of this study. Majority of the students (1149, 77.5%) prefer to work in mathematics related establishments while 393 representing 22.5% would not work in mathematics related establishments. 918 students representing 64.4% believed that mathematical knowledge is applicable to solving human and natural problems while 624 students representing 35.6% were of the contrary view. 893 students representing 63.0% did not agree with the view that only brilliant students can understand mathematics while 649 students representing 37.0% agreed that only brilliant students can understand mathematics. 229 students representing 13.1% are not interested in reading mathematics textbooks while 1313 students representing 86.9% were very interested in reading mathematics textbooks. 222 students representing 12.7% were of the opinion that they will not use mathematics in any way in life while 1320 students representing 87.3% agreed that they will use mathematics in many ways in life. This is in consonance with the views expressed by Toumasis (1993) of the usefulness of mathematics in everyday activity. 292 students representing 16.7% agreed that mathematics is their worst subject while 1250 students representing 83.3% did strongly disagree with this view. This shows that majority of the students like the subject. 749 students representing 42.8% disagreed with the view that mathematics has many technical terms that are difficult to remember while 793 students representing 57.2% strongly agreed that the subject has many technical terms that are difficult to remember.

Recommendations
It is recommended that the teacher should develop positive relationship with students and stress classroom activities, which will involve active teaching- learning process and students participation in the class. Secondary schools, Faculties of Education, State Ministries of Education, Nigerian Union of Teachers and other stakeholders in the education industry should organize periodic seminars and workshops for students, parents, teachers and school administrators designed to promote positive attitudes towards mathematics.

References
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