Quantitative Ability as Correlates of Students’ Academic Achievement in Secondary School Economics in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The introduction of quantitative topics into the secondary school economics
curriculum has attracted the interest of economics educators and
researchers. This concern arose from the fact that students’ achievements in the Secondary School Certificate Economics have remained poor. It is
against this background that this study investigated the relationship between quantitative ability (knowledge of Venn diagram; measures of central tendency; and percentage) and secondary school students’ achievement in economics. The study adopted survey research design of the ex-post facto type. A purposive sampling technique was used to select sample for this. Data were analyzed using Pearson Product Moment correlation and multiple regression statistics. The findings revealed that that students’ knowledge of measures of central tendency made the greatest contribution to their achievement in Economics (b = .653; p<.05). This is followed by Venn diagram (b = .580; p<.05). These two variables made contributions which are significant. Only Students’ knowledge of percentage made no significant contribution to their achievement in Economics (b = .450; p>.05). It is, therefore, recommended that these factors should be taken into consideration in order to enhance the understanding of economics.

Keywords: Quantitative ability, Knowledge of Central tendency,
Knowledge of Venn diagram, Knowledge of Percentage and
Secondary School, Achievement in economics