European Journal of Scientific Research - EuroJournals

261 Olubunmi M. Adaramola and Jane I. Alamina
Hypothesis iii
1. Null hypothesis (Ho3): There is no significant difference between the performance of students in
the experimental group and students in the control group in all the schools.
Table 7: Summary of Data Analysis of variance of the pretest/posttest scores of students in the experimental
group and students in the control group for the 3 schools
Source of variance SS Df MS f critical f calculated ∝
Between group (pretest) 12.74 1 12.74 3.89 1.37 0.05
Within group (pretest) 1657.70 178 9.3
Total 1670.44
Between group (post test) 164.3 1 164.3 14.3 0.05
Within group (posttest) 2048.5 178 11.5 “
Total 2212.8
Decision: with 1 and 178 degree of freedom, the critical F ratio was 3.89 at 0.05 level of significance.
Comparing the pretest scores for all the students in both groups, the calculated F ratio is 1.37 which is
not significant. After the treatment has been applied, F ratio 14.3, was obtained. Since the calculated F
ratio is higher than the critical value, we reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative that there
is significant different between the students performance in the experimental group and student
performance in the control group.
Hypothesis iv
Null hypothesis (Ho4): There is no significant difference between the performance of boys and girls in
the experimental group in all the school.
Table 8: Summary of Data Analysis of variance of the posttest scores of boys and girls in the experimental
group for the three schools.
Source of Variance SS Df MS =ssdf F critical F calculated �
Between groups 0.8 1 0.8 3.96 0.08 0.05
Within groups 833.2 88 9.5
Total 834.0
Decision: With 1 and 88 df, the critical f ratio was 3.96 at 0.05 level of significance. Since this value is
greater than the calculated F value 0.08, the null hypothesis that there is no significant difference in the
performance of boys and girls in the experimental group was accepted.
Discussion of findings
For research question 1, the increase in performance can be attributed to the instructional method used
in teaching these students in the experimental group. Mathematical games as an instructional method
provided an opportunity for students to participate actively in the lesson through games. This is in
consonance with the opinions of Pines and West (1986) that students’ participation in any instruction
brings about improvement in their performances. The high values of standard deviation in the schools
revealed that the student were heterogeneous (individualistic) in their responses.
In the case of research question 2, the out comes showed that as a matter of fact no method is
considerably entirely bad. As long as other factors are present, learning took place.
For research question 3, comparing the performance of both groups, there was an overall
increase in students’ performance for the experimental group above students in the control group. The
out come of research question 2 is evident. This result only showed the superiority of mathematical
games over the well known traditional method of teaching. This superiority may have resulted from the