Effect Of Concrete-Representational-Abstract And Explicit Instructional Strategies On Senior Secondary School Students’ Achievement In And Attitude To Mathematics

ABSTRACT

Mathematics is viewed as the basis for science and technology as well as a tool

for achieving scientific and technological development. Despite the importance to human

activities and development, students generally view Mathematics as being an abstract

subject. This has resulted in poor performance in the subject arising from the poor

instructional strategies adopted in its teaching. Many studies attempting to find a solution

to this problem but only a few had focused on such strategies that involve active

participation of students in learning through cutting and modeling of the concepts and

mastery at every step. This study, therefore, examined the effect of Concrete-

Representational-Abstract Instructional Strategy (CRAIS) and Explicit Instructional

Strategy (EIS) on students‟ achievement in and attitude to Mathematics. It also

investigated the moderating effects of Mathematics learning difficulty and gender on

dependent variables.

The study adopted the pretest-posttest, control group, quasi experimental design

with a 3x3x2 factorial matrix. Two hundred and seventy-nine senior secondary II

students from six public schools purposively selected from three local government areas

in Ibadan municipality were randomly grouped into two experimental groups and a

control group. The experimental groups were exposed to CRAIS and EIS while the

control group was exposed to Modified Conventional Teaching strategy for six weeks.

Instruments used were: Test on Students Mathematics Learning Difficulties (r = 0.85);

Students Mathematics Achievement Test (r = 0.83) and Students Mathematics Attitude

Questionnaire (r = 0.79). Three instructional guides on Concrete-Representational–

Abstract Instructional Strategy, Explicit Instructional Strategy and Modified

Conventional Teaching Strategy were also used. Seven hypotheses were tested at 0.05

significance level. Data were subjected to Analysis of Covariance and Scheffe Post hoc

test.

Treatment had significant main effect on students achievement in Mathematics

(F(2, 260) = 86.4; p