Comparism of Study Skills, Exam Preparedness and Attitudes Toward Mathematics among Pupils in Public and Private Schools in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined study skills, examination preparedness, and attitudes toward mathematics among pupils in Oyo State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. Three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The target population of the study was all basic five pupils out of which 600 pupils constitute the sample size. A self-constructed questionnaire titled study skills, examination preparedness, and attitudes toward mathematics questionnaire (SSEPAMQ) was used for data collection. The instrument was content validated while the Cronbach Alpha reliability yielded an index of 0.84. Mean and standard deviation were used to provide answer to the research questions raised, while the hypotheses were tested using t-test. The findings revealed that there is moderate level of study skills towards mathematics among pupils, moderate level of examination preparedness, and positive attitudes towards mathematics in Oyo State, Nigeria. Also, there was significant difference in study skills, examination preparedness, and attitudes towards mathematics between public and private primary school pupils in Oyo State. This implies that policymakers need to shape curricula, teacher training programmes, and resource distribution to ensure that students are equipped with the study skills necessary for effective teaching and learning mathematics. It was recommended among others that pupils should be encouraged to engage in active learning strategies so as to promote their study skills, while increase in problem solving skills will reduce anxiety and increase their examination preparedness which will promote pupils’ positive attitude towards mathematics.