Effect of 7es Instructional Strategy on the Academic Achievement and Retention of Secondary School Students in Mathematics in Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the effect of the 7Es instructional strategy on the academic achievement and retention of secondary school students in Mathematics in Niger State, Nigeria. The study was guided by three specific objectives with corresponding research questions and hypotheses. The design for the study was a quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test, non-equivalent control group design. The population comprised SS II Mathematics students in public secondary schools in Niger state. Two intact classes were purposively sampled and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group was taught using the 7Es instructional strategy, while the control group was taught using the conventional teacher-centered method. The instrument for data collection were the Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT) and Mathematics Retention Test (MRT). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to answer the research questions while independent sample t-test was used to test the null hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed no significant difference in the pre-test scores, indicating baseline parity. However, the post-test and retention results showed that students taught with the 7Es strategy significantly outperformed those in the control group. The study concluded that the 7Es strategy is a potent tool for enhancing performance and long-term memory in Mathematics. It was recommended that Mathematics teachers in Niger State should move away from the over-reliance on conventional lecture methods and adopt the 7Es instructional strategy to improve students' performance and retention.