Predicting Academic Success of Junior Secondary School Students in Mathematics through Cognitive Style and Problem Solving Technique

Abstract

This study examined the prediction of academic success of Junior secondary school mathematics students using their cognitive style and problem solving technique.  A descriptive survey of correlation type was adopted for this study. A purposive sampling procedure was used to select five Public Junior secondary schools in Ijebu-Ode local government area, Ogun state. For the purpose of this study, an arm of intact class JSSII students were selected from each selected school through a simple random sampling procedure. Three valid and reliable instruments were used to collect data for this study as Sigel’s cognitive style test (SICOST), Problem solving technique test (PSTT) and Mathematics achievement test (MAT). Their content validity values were 0.79; 0.74 and 0.84 respectively using Lawshe method. The test retest reliability value was 0.82 of SICOST, the coefficient of reliability values of PSCT and MAT were 0.79 and 0.87 respectively using Kuder-Richardson (K-R 20)’s formula. The results of the Pearson correlation and Multiple regression test show that: no significant relationship exists between the students’ cognitive style and problem solving technique; the two predictor variables jointly significantly predicted academic success in mathematics; the relative effect of problem solving technique in mathematics is greater than that of cognitive style.

It is recommended that problem solving intervention strategies should be used in handling the mathematical problems of students to enhance their academic success in other to serve as essential ingredients for achieving a holistic education.

Keywords: Academic success, Cognitive style, and Problem solving technique