CORRELATE OF MOTIVATION AND STUDENTS ‘ATTITUDES IN LEARNING MATHEMATICS AT SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL ONE OF IJAIYE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF LAGOS STATE.

Abstract

The study on correlate of motivation and Students „attitude in Mathematics at Senior Secondary School One was premised on the need to change the students‟ narrative of excelling in the subject which they have considered as dreadful towards particular gender, on one hand and as foundation level where students are classified into Science/Arts/Commercial for their future career selection in life, on the other hand. As a survey study which had among others the objective of factored-in the importance of motivation and attitudes in man‟s life, study was conducted among all senior secondary school students in Lagos State with purposive sampling, due to the cooperation of the schools involved, four public senior secondary school one students numbering one hundred and twenty in Ifako Ijaiye Local Government Area of the State, two research questions and hypotheses were raised.. An adapted instrument called Questionnaires Motivation and Attitudes to Learning Mathematics (MALM, r = 0.79), of 22-items was used.

Section A of the instruments comprised of respondents‟ bio-data and B comprising twenty-two items: Data collected was analyzed using frequency counts, mean, standard deviation and Pearson moment correlation. Results showed that there were varying levels of motivation towards attitudinal disposition of students in learning Mathematics from the least to highest values of 2.07 and 3.40 respectively. It was observed that there were varying levels of motivation and gender's attitudinal disposition of students in learning Mathematics from the least to highest values of 1.84 and 3.28 respectively.

There was a strong relationship between pre-and post-motivation with strong correlation values of 0. 8, with submission that there was significant correlate of „pre and post motivation and students‟ attitudes in learning Mathematics (ρ=0.8). Motivation and genders attitudes to learning Mathematics was found significant of correlate motivation and genders‟ attitudes in learning Mathematics [t-table<t-calculated, df=118, P<0.05.). Discussions, conclusion and recommendations were proffered in the study.