EXPLORING PEER-TUTORING AS INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY FOR DEVELOPING CREATIVITY IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS AND PROMOTING ACHIEVEMENT IN GEOMETRY IN THE STATE OF TARABA STATE

Abstract

Evidence from research has indicated that classroom practices across Nigeria in general and Taraba State in particular are dominated by teacher-centered activities. Teacher centeredness has been shown to be a major cause of under-achievement by geometry or mathematics students. This is because in this approach, students are made to learn in passivity and the major actor (the teacher), emphasizes routine arithmetic characterized by memorization and repetition. As a result, students merely develop the ability to carry out straight forward computational procedures and tend to have only a small understanding of mathematical ideas. This leads to poor achievement in the subject. Furthermore, research evidence has it that when students are made to be the focus of instruction, they are made to think and take active part in the teaching/learning process. Consequent upon this, they achieve well. This investigation explored peer-tutoring as a strategy for making students think and take active part in the teaching/learning process. In particular, the study subjected students to working in small groups comprising of peers to think and actively make sense of the properties of geometric figures like rectangles, trapezia, triangles and so on. The quasi-experimental design was employed for the conduct of the study. One hundred and sixty (160) Senior Secondary two students ((80 males and 80 females) were randomly sampled for the study, using the cluster random sampling method. Six (6) research questions were asked to guide the conduct of the investigation and three (3) null hypotheses were formulated for testing at the 5% (0.05) level of significance. Two instruments called the Properties of Plane Shapes Test (PPST) and the Geometry Achievement Test (GAT) were used to obtain information. Gathered data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation and t-test statistic. Recommendations were proffered based on finding.