EFFECT OF SENSORY-BASED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN MATHEMATICS IN OGIDI EDUCATION ZONE, ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of Sensory-Based Instructional Strategy (S-BIS) on secondary school students' academic achievement in Mathematics in Ogidi Education Zone, Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at the 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, non-randomized control group design. The population comprised 2,556 Senior Secondary School Two (SS II) students in the 29 co-educational public secondary schools in Ogidi Education Zone, Anambra State. A sample of 160 SS II students was drawn from two co-educational public secondary schools in two local government areas through a multistage sampling procedure. Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT) was used for data collection. The instrument was subjected to expert review by three lecturers, while it’s internal consistency was established using the Kuder-Richardson Formula 20, which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.83. The data were analysed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings indicated that students taught Mathematics using S-BIS had substantially higher achievement scores than those taught using the Conventional Lecture Method (CLM). The ANCOVA further showed a statistically significant main effect of teaching method on students' achievement. Gender did not have a statistically significant main effect, and the interaction effect between teaching method and gender was not statistically significant. The study concluded that S-BIS is a promising learner-centred approach for improving students' academic achievement in Mathematics and that its effectiveness did not significantly differ by gender in the present study. It was recommended, among others, that Mathematics teachers should be trained in the effective implementation of S-BIS and that schools should provide appropriate instructional materials, including mathematical models, manipulatives, charts and geometric solids, to support multisensory Mathematics instruction.