ATTITUDE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS TOWARDS THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS

The study was aimed at investigating the attitude of secondary school students towards the study of Mathematics in Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State. The study comprises of five research question and four hypotheses which were drawn from the research questions. The study is delimited to secondary schools student. Ninety - four students were randomly selected from five public senior secondary schools; a random sampling method was used by questionnaire as the research instrument. The validity of the research instrument was done by the supervisor and two other experts in the Faculty of Education, University of Benin. The split half correlation of 0.669 was step up to full length using Spearman Brown formula which yields a reliability coefficient of 0.82 that indicates a high level of internal consistency in the instrument. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, including frequency distribution and percentages, as well as estimate for mean value. The hypotheses were thoroughly examined using Pearson r formula. The findings revealed that students show positive attitude towards the study of Mathematics. Also, Mathematics teachers teaching methods in public senior secondary schools can encourage or discourage students to develop positive or negative attitudes to the learning of the subject. The findings also revealed that parents background do not affect how students respond to Mathematics as a subject. lt is recommended that Mathematics teachers should engage in interactions within the classroom, encourage and monitor group study. And parent should encourage the students' with their choice of career to enable them, focus on their studies.