IMPACT OF USING ETHNOMATHEMATICS IN TEACHING ON PERFORMANCE AND RETENTION IN MATHEMATICS AMONG PRIMARY PUPILS IN NIGERIA

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IMPACT OF USING ETHNOMATHEMATICS IN TEACHING ON PERFORMANCE AND RETENTION IN MATHEMATICS AMONG PRIMARY PUPILS IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

For a long time many researchers in mathematics education have focused their attention on student learning difficulties in school mathematics mostly confined to the formal classroom environment highlighting that there also exist outside of the formal classroom other educationally significant factors having the potential to either enhance or retard effective learning of formal school mathematics ( Matang & Owens , 2004) .

According to D’Ambrosio in 2001, ethnomathematics is “the study of different forms of mathematics that arise from different modes of thought.” This definition is so broad that it can be used to describe the math that is practiced by the indigenous tribes in Africa as well as the math practiced by engineers that specifically relates to their field of interest

Retention is measured in collaboration with achievement. This means that closely related to achievement is retention. Hornby (2000) defines retention as the ability to remember experiences and things learnt. Similarly, kundu and Tutoo (2002) posited that retention is the preservation of mind.

Gender is also among the variables to be tested in this study. Nowadays, gender issues has assumed an important dimension in recent times as a result of increasing awareness of the moral implications of the dangers inherent in the marginalization of women in the science subjects including mathematics who form more than half of the world population

Mathematics constitutes a basic part of the National Curriculum for Primary schools as well as Secondary Education. The federal Government of Nigeria has for long been aware of the pivotal position of mathematics to individual fulfillment and national developmental goals with particular reference to scientific and technological emancipation and break through. This understanding has consequently led educational policy makers to position mathematics as a compulsory and one of the core subjects in primary and secondary level of education (FME,2004).

The power structure that exists in Nigeria today originated in the colonial period, in the 19th century. This led to the imposition of a dominating Eurocentric cultural system on the country (Abbas, 2000) .Teachers in the country have increasingly been finding it difficult to get examples that are not Eurocentric. Consequently low achievement in school mathematics has been increasing and shows no sign of reversal (Abbas 2000, D’Ambrosio, 2001).

The Nigeria National curriculum included Hausa among the compulsory subjects in Primary and Secondary school (Waziri, 2010).This may be connected to the organized nature of the tribe, in terms of traditional administration (Sarki, Dagachi and MaiUnguwa), Scholarship and Commercial excellence of the language. In view of this development Hausa culture is rich with mathematical stuffs such as riddles, games, crafts, events, folklores, customs, objects and other traditional festivals. To this backdrop there is a need to multi-culturalise the mathematics curriculum in order to improve its quality, to upgrade the cultural confidence of all learners and arrest any racial and cultural bias and stigma. Hence, the researcher investigated the impact of using ethnomathematics in teaching on performance and retention in mathematics among primary III pupils in Lere educational district, Kaduna, Nigeria.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

There are more than 250 ethnic groups in the 21st century Nigeria. The largest and most politically dominant ones are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. Other minor ethnic groups are the Fulani, Kanuri, Ibibio, Ijaw, Babur, Tiv, Idoma, Karekare and many others. Geographically, the three major ethnic groups are Hausa in the North, the Yoruba in the south-west and the Igbo in the south-east and our diversity is our strength due to our various cultural practices. The low performance and retention rate in mathematics of students particularly among sex was attributed to instructional modality adopted by teachers. Some the researchers, recommended blended instructional techniques towards enhancing better retention and achievement. In view of the above situation there is need to develop or adopt teaching methods which are capable of improving the reasoning and logical ability of the learners to enable them retains concepts. The mathematics taught in schools is foreign, Eurocentric in origin and built on western cultural background, making students to learn by rote memorization in which the attendant result is consistent mass failure of students. Hence students no longer have interest towards the study of the subject. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of using ethnomathematics could have on performance and retention in mathematics among primary III pupils in Lere educational district, Kaduna-Nigeria.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The main of objective of this study is to investigate the impact of using ethnomathematics in teaching mathematics on performance and retention among primary III pupils in Lere education district, Kaduna-Nigeria. The specific objectives are to:

determine the impact of using ethnomathematics in teaching on performance in mathematics among primary school pupils.

investigate the impact of using ethnomathematics in teaching on retention in mathematics among primary school pupils.

find out gender differences on the impact of using ethnomathematics in teaching on performance in mathematics among primary school pupils.

determine gender differences on the impact of using ethnomathematics in teaching on retention in mathematics among primary school pupils.

1.4 Research Questions

Specifically, the study seeks to answer the following research questions.

What is the difference in the performance of pupils in the experimental group and control group in mathematics?

What is the difference in the retention ability of pupils in the experimental group and control group in mathematics?

What is the difference in the performance of male and female pupils taught mathematics using ethnomathematics and those taught using conventional lecture method?

What is the difference in the retention level of male and female pupils taught mathematics using ethnomathematics and those taught using conventional lecture method?

1.5 Null Hypotheses

The following null hypotheses will be formulated for testing at; p 0.05 level of significance.

H01: There is no significant difference between the performance of pupils taught mathematics using ethnomathematics and those taught using conventional method.

H02: There is no significant difference between the retention level of pupils taught mathematics using ethnomathematics and those taught using conventional method.

H03: There is no significant difference between the performance of male and female pupils taught mathematics using ethnomathematics and those taught using conventional lecture method?

H04: There is no significant difference between the retention level of male and female pupils taught mathematics using ethnomathematics and those taught using conventional lecture method?.

1.6 Significance of the Study

The findings of the study benefitted the standard of mathematics education in the following ways:

The study would benefit the mathematics teachers to teach in line with the rationale for one of the most fundamental principles of education ,that is ,teaching from known to unknown. The study would benefit them to express the relationship between culture and mathematics and it would benefit them to understand how culture relates to students and their learning. It benefitted mathematics educators to reaffirmed, and in some instances to restored, the cultural dignity of the students.The research, also benefitted them in understanding the role that culture had played and continues to play in shaping mathematical development.

The study benefitted the students to learned mathematical concepts and appreciated the works of others in diverse cultures and reasonable despised them, making violence and hatred less likely to happen in schools. For instance, considering that voluminous information/data in a succinct manner, one cannot help it but admired the minds of those who first created them. Also, it would benefitted the students in discovering that mathematical knowledge is a value-laden, and thus refuting the traditional approach of teaching and learning of mathematics as observed by D’Ambrosio(2001). The research, make the students to simply realize that they are mathematically capable and that they do in fact possess a long and rich mathematical heritage.

The study, would benefit the curriculum planners by compliment their efforts to considered multicultural mathematical activities that will reflect the knowledge and behaviors of people from diverse cultural environments. To acquire these skills while maintaining dignity and to be prepared for full participation in society the system require more than what is offered in a traditional curriculum. Much of today’s curriculum is so disconnected from the child’s reality, which is impossible for the child to be a full participant in it. The mathematics in many classrooms has practically nothing to do with the world that the students are experiencing .Just as literacy has come to mean much more than reading and writing , mathematics must also be thought of as more than , and indeed different from counting, calculating, or comparing . The study will help curriculum planners to understand and acknowledge mathematics as a compilation of progressive discoveries and inventions from cultures around the world during the course of history.

The study would benefitted the government and non- governmental organizations by complementing their efforts in the learning of formal school mathematics by providing the relevant contextual meaning to many abstract mathematical ideas which otherwise would be difficult for students to learn and understand.

The Professional bodies such as mathematics association of Nigeria (MAN), Science teachers association of Nigeria (STAN), Nigerian research development council (NERDC), would benefit from the study by training the prospective members on the effective use of ethnomathematics.

The study would guide the text book publishers to reframe text books on Mathematics to reflect the learner’s cultural diversity and publish the identified mathematical practices in Hausa culture.

The research instruments used by the researcher in this study can be adapted or adopted by other researchers when investigating the effect of teaching methods in teaching primary III pupils.

The result of this study would also help the school administrators and policy makers to encourage mathematics teachers to adopt ethnomathematics teaching strategies when solving mathematical concepts. Researchers in mathematics education can benefit from the study, because it adds new information to the existing literature; hence researchers can use the findings of this study for further studies.

1.7 Scope/Delimitation of the Study

The study comprised of twenty two (22) primary schools in Lere education district, of Lere education authority of Kaduna state Nigeria.Two schools were sampled one as experimental group and the other school as the control group . Primary pupils are more appropriate for the study, because the use of mother tongue (Lm) and second language (L2) were allowed during teaching and learning processes. Therefore, the experimental group were taught using ethnomathematics and the control group were taught using conventional lecture method. The instruments used for data collection were mathematics performance test 1 (MPT1), mathematics performance test 2 (MPT2 )and mathematics retention test (MRT), the test item comprised of 20 objective test questions. The topics covered for the study were based on statistics, algebra, geometry and measurement. The researcher did not include any other cultural practices other than that of Hausa culture and the research was restricted to primary school pupils in Lere education district of Kaduna state, Nigeria.

1.8 Basic Assumptions

The study was carried out based on the following assumptions:

The pupils involved in this research are familiar with the Hausa culture such as language, cultural artifacts etc.

The teachers are using Eurocentric teaching approach to teach the primary schools’ pupils the concepts of mathematics.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

The need to acquire knowledge in Mathematics in the world over has become very obvious. This is because it is relevant to everyday living and in various disciplines. As a follow up, it has been a compulsory subject both at primary and secondary school levels in Nigeria. Its usefulness in technological development of the nation as well as to mankind (Azuka, 2003; Salman, 2003; Imoko, 2004; Uloko and Usman, 2008) further stresses the need for it.

As important as the subject is, the tremendous and persistent failures of the Nigerian Students in it (Sanni and Ochepa, 2002; Uloko and Imoko, 2007; Abakpa and Agbo – Egwu, 2008) has remained a major threat to its learning. The failure rate was so high that Nigeria was

found to occupy the second to the last position when compared with the eleven other English speaking West African countries in mathematics in School Certificate Examination (Abakpa and Agbo – Egwu, 2008).

Attempts to find solution to this incessant failure have made researchers in mathematics education to consider a number of factors. One of such factors which is closely re-examined in this study is the inappropriate method of teaching. According to Harbor-Peters (2001), low achievement in mathematics is caused by the teachers’ non utilization of appropriate teaching approaches.

The researchers in this study quite agree with the observations made in some certain quarters that, the method of teaching mathematics in Nigeria is completely out of phase with background and local environments of the learners. Further, that this method is foreign in nature, has no bearing with the Nigeria culture, and purely derived from euro-centric culture (Obodo, 1997; Kurumeh, 2004; Uloko, 2006; Uloko and Imoko, 2007; Uloko and Ogwuche, 2007). One of the consequences of over dependence on foreign approaches to teaching mathematics is the seemingly lack of basic mathematical principles which results to rote-learning and low achievement in mathematics as could be seen in Nigeria today. Attempts to address this problem have necessitated the fact that teachers should evolve strategies that will ensure active participation of learners, practical oriented, project oriented and applicable (Obodo, 1997; D’Ambrosio, 2001; Kurumeh, 2004; Uloko, 2006). This seems to call for the option of giving ethnomathematics a trial; being a teaching approach, which focuses students’ background, their immediate environments integrated with the euro-centric mathematics in a practical way as demanded by the concept of Locus.

Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematics which takes into consideration the culture in which mathematics arises (Kurumeh, 2004). She stresses further that if we conceptualize mathematics as the development of structures and systems of ideas involving number, pattern, logic and spatial configuration and then examine how mathematics arises and is used in various cultures, it is possible to gain a much deeper understanding of the subject. Perhaps such understanding may depend on the section of mathematics (e.g. Locus) being considered.

Locus can simply be explained as the path traced by a point under specific conditions (Osuagwu, Anemalu and Onyeozili, 2000). This path may be a straight line; it may be a curve as parabola, trajectory or circle as ellipse. It is a concept that occupies a central place in the study of geometry. For instance, the study of conic sections in geometry is purely locus. Geometry is a branch of mathematics that deals with the measure and properties of points, lines, curves and surfaces. Geometry forms the building blocks of engineering and technical graphics. Further, the conic section of geometry which is purely locus is of great importance to astronomy, mechanics and technology (Aleksandrov, Kolmogorov and Lav-rent’ev, 2005). The repeated record of poor performance in geometry which locus is central, demands urgent attention if the country must have a breakthrough in science and technology. Since the study of the field in focus calls for practical activities, the use of the environment with its loaded cultural contents or simply ethnomathematics is considered appropriate.

Ethnomathematics is the cultural utility of mathematics as a science (Harbor-Peters, 2001). To D’Ambrosio (2001), it is an approach of teaching and learning mathe-matics which builds on the students’ previous knowledge, background, the role his environment plays in terms of content and method, and his past and present experiences of his immediate environment. To him the approach could be in a practical way. It is on this basis that this study investigates the effect of Ethnomathematics Teaching Approach (ETA) (employing its practical attributes) on achievement and retention of students in Locus. According to Kurumeh (2004), ETA is an approach used to explain the reality of relationship between cultural environment and mathematics while teaching. For the purpose of this study, ETA is defined as the use of familiar and immediate environments of a learner in teaching him mathematics. It is an approach that translates the foreign or euro-centric mathematics to suit the background and familiar environment of the learner for meaningful teaching and learning. Of particular interest is the practical approach. This study intends to employ the reach cultural environment of the study area especially their farming and building activities to teach Locus in Mathematics.

The secrete behind the Japanese’s and Chinese’s success in mathematics, science and technology today is traceable to their use of ethnomathematics (Tereziaha, 1999; Obodo, 2000; Kurumeh, 2004; Uloko and Imoko, 2007). This study therefore, investigates whether the use of ETA (which combines indigenous with foreign mathematics backgrounds) will also help Nigerian students achieve high in Locus. In this study, all the present teaching approaches other than ethnomathematics put together is referred to as conventional approach.

It is one thing to be taught mathematics via a preferred approach such as ETA; it is another thing to remember it after some reasonable period of time must have elapsed, that is retention. Retention as defined by Hornby (2001) is the ability to remember things. For the purpose of this study, retention is defined as the ability to keep or retain the knowledge of locus learnt and to be able to recall it when required. Retention in mathematics is not acquired by mere rote-memorization but through appropriate teaching method (Iji, 2002; Chianson, 2008). According to the findings of Iji (2002), and Chianson (2008), those students in the experimental group retained more of the learnt mathematics than those in the control group although for Iji the noted difference was not statistically significant.

Statement of the problem

Students, parents, educators, government and the populace are worried because of the persistent poor achievement of students in mathematics. Evidence shows that this condition is deplorably high, to the point that Nigeria students start competing for the last position instead of first in mathematics in School Certificate Examination among the eleven English-speaking West African Countries. Also there is evidence to lend support to the fact that this poor achievement and retention is as a result of non-utilization of appropriate teaching approaches in the subject. One wonders why all the methods used so far are not capable of reversing this ugly trend. It is however noted that the use of ETA has not been tried out in Nigeria, particularly in locus to see if it could reverse this poor achievement. Therefore, the problem of this study is how to provide evidence on the effectiveness or otherwise of the use of ethnomathematics teaching approach on students’ achievement and retention in Locus.

Ethnomathematics and its practical application in locus

Ethnomathematcs was a coined term first introduced in 1986 by a Brazilian mathematics educator, Ubiratan D’ Ambrosio. This concept is deeply rooted in the idea and philosophy of Paul Freire. Simply, ethno refers to the ‘cultural context’ while mathema refers ‘to explain’, ‘to know’ or ‘to understand’ and tics has to do with techne which is also rooted in art and techniques. Thus according to Davidson (2000), Ethnomathematics is the art or technique of explaining, knowing and understanding diverse cultural contexts. Further, Shirley (1995) says that Ethnomathematics has come to include the documentation and the study of culturally related learning styles. It is found to facilitate development of learners in Mathemathics especially women (Gilmer and Milwankee, 2001; Knijinik, 1997). In particular, Mogari (2002) found the use of ETA to be efficacious. In the present study, how the people roof their round hut thatch houses and mark their farms is particularly employed.

The people of Benue State of Nigeria especially Education zone B which comprise of the Tiv speaking tribe mainly have very rich cultural practices that could be used to advantage to teach Locus in Mathematics. They dwell in hut thatch houses mainly in all rural areas and are predominantly farmers. Consequently how they roof their houses and mark or map out their yam farms in interesting.

Let us consider their roofing style. The people begin roofing of their round hut houses on plain ground starting by knotting loosely a syrup rope (that is, a circle or an ellipse). Thereafter, two sticks of a required length are pushed through the circle. The sticks are then made to stand erect on flat ground and separated from one another by a required distance at the base, that is, the part touching the ground. The angle can then be measured. Further, more sticks are pushed through the loosely tied knot to enable further works on the roofing and to allow the cone-shaped roof stand on its base.

The students were brought out of the class to do this practically. This was accompanied by measurements such angles, diameter and radius of circle as well as the length of sticks used.

In farm mapping, boundaries are created with straight lines which sometimes are imagined and in recent time determined with rope. In the process pegs are used to ensure that the shape expected (e.g., rectangular, square, etc) is obtained. The practical approach was used in the preparation of the lesson plans and as well the teaching of the experimental group.

Research questions

These research questions guided the study:

1. What is the relative effect of the use of ETA and conventional teaching method on students’ mean achievement scores in Locus?

2. What is the relative effect of the use of ETA and conventional teaching methods on students’ mean retention scores in Locus?

Hypotheses

These null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance:

1. There is no significant difference in the mean achievement scores of students taught Locus using ETA and those taught using the conventional approach.

2. There is no significant difference in the mean retention scores of students taught Locus with ETA and those taught with the conventional approach.

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