Effects of Dialogic Discourse on Senior School Students’ Performance in Differential Calculus

Abstract

Further Mathematics is very important to everyday life especially in a society that is technologically increasing. It is being studied by learners who intend to study mathematics related courses at the tertiary level of education. Senior school students’ performance in Calculus has not been encouraging and has been a matter of concern to researchers. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of dialogic discourse on senior school students’ performance in differential calculus. Specifically, the study investigated the: (i) effects of the dialogic and teacher-presentation discourses on students’ performance in calculus; (ii) influence of gender on the performance of students when taught calculus using dialogic and teacher-presentation discourses; (iii) influence of score levels on the performance of students when taught calculus using dialogic and teacher-presentation discourses. This study adopted the pre-test post-test non-randomized and non-equivalent control group design of the quasi-experimental research design. The pre-test post-test of 2x2x3 was used with experimental levels, that is, discourse patterns, occurring at 2 levels (dialogic and teacher-presentation discourses), gender at 2 levels (male and female) and the students’ score levels also at 3 levels (high, medium, and low scoring students). One hundred and six (106) senior secondary school students that were selected from two purposively sampled schools participated in the study. The validated research instrument, Further Mathematics Performance Test on Differential Calculus (FMPT-DC) was used for the study. Findings from the study revealed that there is: (i) a significant difference in the performance of students taught dialogic discourse and those taught teacher-presentation discourse (ii) no significant difference in the performance of male and female students when taught calculus using dialogic and teacher-presentation discourses, (iii) there is significant difference in the performance of high, medium and low scorers when taught using dialogic discourse. The study concluded that students that were taught calculus using dialogic performed better than those taught using teacher-presentation discourse. The study then recommended that teachers of Further Mathematics should adopt the use of dialogic discourse in teaching calculus and all other concepts in Further Mathematics. Also, teachers should make sure that the medium and low scorers are actively involved by making them group leaders whenever they want to use the dialogic discourse pattern.