Thesis:

Effects of teaching through problem–solving approach on students’ mathematics achievement in secondary schools of Murang’a county, Kenya

Students’ low performance in Mathematics at Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in Murang’a County has been of concern to both primary and secondary stakeholders. There is need to look at this problem as students’ performance in Mathematics determines their participation in science-oriented programmes at tertiary level. Many interventions been done to address this concern including the provision of Mathematics resource books, in-servicing of teachers of Mathematics through SMASSE programme but low students’ achievement persists. There is a need then to explore other interventions. The current study investigated the effects of teaching through problem – solving on students’ achievements in Mathematics in secondary schools of Murang’a County. The study objectives included:- (i) To determine extent, which teacher of Mathematics use problem–solving strategies in their teaching (ii) To compare students’ performance in Mathematics for those taught using problem–solving strategies with those taught using conventional methods (iii) To assess students’ change in attitude towards Mathematics where problem–solving strategies used instead of conventional methods in classrooms, and (iv) To develop a prototype lesson plan for problem–solving in teaching Mathematics The study employed a quasi – experimental design using Solomon Four Group design. The target population was 104562 students and 1365 Mathematics teachers in 340 public secondary schools in Murang’a County. The accessible population was 28475 Form Three students. The schools were stratified into four categories based on KCSE performances in Mathematics during a period of four years 2015-2017, giving an overall of 16 schools: eight schools for experimental group and eight schools for control group. The total sample size was 560 respondents comprising of 544 students’ and 16 teachers. Students’ Mathematics Attitude Questionnaire used to collect data on students’ attitude towards Mathematics in both control and experimental groups. Four schools in experimental and four schools in control participated in pre-test and all sixteen schools received post-test Mathematics achievements tests after intervention. The collected data coded and analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. The statistical tests used to analyse data were t–tests, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Cohen’s d to establish the effect of problem–solving method of teaching Mathematics on students’ achievement. Those who received pre-test had (M=39.36, n=128) experimental (E1) and (M=36.57, n=147) control (C1), show that students’ performance pre-test was insignificant (t (275) = 0.924, and small Cohen’s d = 0.17 (P > 0.05)). The post-test Mathematics Achievement revealed that experimental groups (E1+E2) performed better (M=47.57, n=254) against control groups (C1+C2) (M=36.56, n=290). The Cohen’s d value of 0.71 showed a large effect size (F (540) = 2.537, p = 0.0025, α < 0.05)). Problem–solving skills helped to change the students’ attitude towards Mathematics (Cohen’s d of 0.88, which is large. The study revealed that there was overall improvement on Mathematics achievement among the students taught using the problem-solving strategy. The study recommends that teachers should embrace problem–solving strategy rather than conventional methods in teaching Mathematics for better achievement in Mathematics in secondary schools of Murang’a County.