Influence of Social Stratification on Senior Secondary Students’ Motivation and Achievement in Plane Geometry

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of social stratification on senior secondary students’ motivation and achievement in plane geometry. The study adopted the analytical survey research design. The population of the study consisted of 10,117 senior secondary students in fifteen (15) public senior secondary schools in Port Harcourt city local government area of Rivers State. A sample of 384 senior secondary class one students and fourteen public senior secondary schools obtained from the populations using Taro Yamane formula were selected by simple random sampling and used for the study. Two instruments were used for data collection: Social Stratification and Plane Geometry Motivation Questionnaire (SSPGMQ) and Plane Geometry Achievement Test (PGAT). The face and content validities of SSPGMQ and PGAT were established by three authorities (experts) in Mathematics Education. The reliabilities of SSPGMQ and PGAT were established using test-retest method and the reliability indices of 0.92 and 0.74 were obtained for SSPGMQ and PGAT respectively. The four research questions and four hypotheses which guided the study were answered using mean and standard deviation and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) respectively at 0.05 levels of significance. Findings of the study revealed that social stratification had no significant influence on students’ motivation towards learning plane geometry but there was significant effect of social stratification on students’ plane geometry achievement in favour of students from low social stratum. The study recommended that students should be intrinsically motivated and determined to learn plane geometry irrespective of their social stratification. Students from high social stratification should be encouraged by their teachers and parents to improve their study habit and enhance their Mathematics performance like their counterparts from low social stratification.