Abstract:
The contribution that mathematical knowledge and skills' make to the economic,
industrial and technological growth of the modern world are quite obvious to almost
everyone as it enters into all areas of human activities. However as important as the
subject is, the tremendous and persistent failure of the Kenyan students has remained a
major threat to its learning. The subject is viewed in Kenya and even in the developed
world as difficult to learn, thus most students leave school without grasping the
fundamental arithmetical skills required. Traditional (conventional) methods of
teaching are blamed for this poor performance and negative attitude in the subject.
ASEI-PDSI teaching approach is a focus of SMASSE necessitated by the need to
address the situation where teaching was too much teacher dominated and largely chalk
and talk. This study therefore, investigated whether the ASEI activity based approach
of instruction has any effect on the teaching/learning of mathematics as measured by
levels of students' achievements and attitudes towards instructional approach upon the
completion of the study. The objectives of the study were: To determine whether there
is difference in achievement between students exposed to ASEI and Conventional
approach of instruction, examine any gender-related differences in achievement if any,
find out if there is any difference in attitude between students exposed to ASEI and
those using the conventional methods of instruction. The study employed a pretest
posttest experimental randomized control group design .The sample consisted of
provincial secondary schools in Bungoma District. Eight schools, eight classes and a
total of 200 students were selected through systematic simple random sampling .Data
was collected through Mathematics Achievement Tests (MATs) and Likert scale
Mathematics Attitude Questionnaire (MAQ). Piloting was done in two schools to
establish reliability of the instrument and alpha coefficient of about 0.80 was reliable.
Descriptive statistics (percentages, mean and standard deviation and inferential
statistics (t- test) were used to analyze data that was collected with the help of SPSS
software version 17.0. Null Hypotheses were designed and tested at 0.05 level of
significant. From the analysis the main findings were as follows; the difference in
academic achievement and attitude between students taught using ASEI and those using
Conventional methods were statistically significant in favor of ASEI approach, gender
difference in achievement was statistically significant among the control group but was
not statistically significant among the experimental group. The ASEI approach of
teaching was found to have a positive effect on students' attitude and achievement
therefore concluding that the choice of teaching approaches is crucial in student
involvement in the lesson which finally affects the attitude and performance. It is
therefore recommended that teachers in general should be willing to embrace methods
such as ASEI which proved to have an impact on students. .