Socio-economic background and the relative efficacy of self drills on factual recall and students’ achievement in mathematics in senior secondary schools in Nigeria

Abstract

This is an investigation of the moderating effect of socio-economic background on the relative efficacy of self drills on factual recall and students‟ achievement in Mathematics in senior secondary school. The aim was to facilitate the improvement of factual recall and academic achievement among students of diverse socio-economic backgrounds. The study adopted an experimental research design using a 2×3 pre-test, post-test, randomized factorial design. Sample consisted of 120 Senior Secondary School Two (SS2) students. Four null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 levels while three instruments (Socio-Economic Demographic Form, 20 item Word Recall Test and Mathematics Achievement Test) were used for data collection. Analysis of data using MANOVA, t-test, pair-wise comparison and descriptive statistics on the SPSS package revealed relative efficacy of self drills in fostering factual recall and achievement in Mathematics. There was significant moderating effect of socio-economic background on the effect of the treatment on achievement but no effect on factual recall. It is recommended that schools should organize periodic workshops to train students on how to effectively use self drills and other learning strategies.

Keywords: self drills, factual recall, mathematics achievement, socio-economic background