Students Mathematics Interest in Senior High Schools: Empirical Evidence from Ashanti Region of Ghana

Abstract

The relevance of students’ academic interest in mathematics is of great concern to stakeholders in education. The present study models students’ interest in mathematics (SIM) using mathematics facility (MF), mathematics connection (MC), teacher motivation (TM) as well as instructor quality and availability (IQA). The study randomly selected 1500 students from 10 senior high schools from the Ashanti region of Ghana; however, 1,263 of the participants fully participated in the study. These participants were made to respond to validated self-administered questionnaires with alpha-reliability of 0.74, 0.69, 0.70, 0.699 and 0.68 for SIM, MC, MF, IQA and TM respectively. Findings from the study showed that MC, MF, IQA and TM explain 71.6% of the variance in students’ interest in mathematics. The study further found that approximately 15% of variability in teachers’ ability to connect mathematics to real life problems is attributable to availability of mathematics facility as well as instructor quality and availability. The study finally found that availability of mathematics facilities for teaching and learning explains 12.4% of instructor quality in teaching mathematics. The study concluded that students’ interest in mathematics is influenced significantly by the teachers’ ability to connect mathematics to real life and the immediate environment, availability of mathematics facility, teacher motivation as well as instructor quality and availability. The study recommended for mathematics educators to take into account the influence of these factors and integrate them in the delivery of mathematics in high schools.