ABSTRACT

The study investigated the effects of use of geoboard on academic achievement and interest of primary school pupils in mathematics in Abia State, Nigeria. The study adopted a pretest, posttest quasi experimental design. The population of the study consisted of 17,230 primary six pupils made up of 8,833 males and 8,397 females. Two schools were purposively sampled out of 206 schools in Umuahia Education Zone of Abia State. Simple random sampling technique (toss of coin) was used in selecting the school that became experimental and control group as the study sampled a total of 92 pupils. 47 pupils made up the experimental group while the control group was made up of 45 pupils. The research was guided by four research questions and four hypotheses. Two validated researcher made instruments (Researcher Made Mathematics Achievement Test (RMMAT) and Mathematic Interest Scale (MIS)) with reliability coefficients of 0.63 and 0.67 respectively were used for data collection. The research questions were answered by descriptive statistics; mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) statistic at p         < 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed a significant difference between the achievement and interest of the experimental group and control group in favour of the experimental group. It also revealed that there was no significant difference in academic achievement and interest of male and female pupils taught mathematics in the experimental group which imply that the use of geoboard is clearly independent of gender. Base on the findings, it was recommended that geoboard pupils handle themselves to construct mathematical concepts during learning of mathematics should be used in teaching mathematics especially in the area of basic plane shapes at primary school level. It was also recommended that professional bodies like Mathematics Association of Nigeria (MAN), Science Teachers Association of Nigeria (STAN) and research centers like Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) should incorporate the use of concrete instructional materials that give pupils participatory opportunity in the mathematics curriculum at prmary level of learning mathematics to encourage the use of concrete materials like geoboard and others in schools.