Abstract

EFFECT OF COGNITIVE GUIDED INSTRUCTION (CGI) ON STUDENTS CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICAL CONCEPT

Zinkat, O. A.,1 Okoye, F. N.,2 Umeano, C. N.,3 Omeje, E. P.4

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The world is changing at an increasing pace, so do knowledge, competencies, and skills required for sustainable national development. Therefore, the teaching and learning of school mathematics should emphasize these skills. Teaching for conceptual understanding of mathematical concept has been proven to be one of the routes through which the attributes of the aforementioned skills can be achieved. Herewith, this study sought to investigate the effect of Cognitive Guided Instruction (CGI) on students? conceptual understanding in mathematics. The study was a quasi-experimental design. Simple random sampling was employed to select 298 senior secondary school two (SSSII) mathematics students for the study. Two research questions were posed for the study. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Mathematics Conceptual Test (MCT) developed by the researchers was employed to assess students? level of conceptual understanding. The instrument was an open ended question type of test which allows students to describe, explain, and justify their level of conceptual understanding through discussion, writing, sketching, and matching. Six- facets rubric of understanding designed by Wiggings and McTighe (2005) was employed as a scoring guide to score students? responses to the instrument. A reliability estimate of 0.87 was obtained through Pearson Product Moment Correlation. Data collected were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, and ANCOVA. The findings revealed that students taught with CGI gained more understanding than those taught with conventional method. The findings of the study also revealed that teaching method is a significant factor in developing students? conceptual understanding. The study also showed that CGI can be used for both male and female students. The implication of the study is that mathematics teacher will avoid over-emphasizing of computational procedure at the expense of problem solving skills and conceptual experiences. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that mathematics teachers should be trained on how to effectively employ CGI in the classroom. It was also recommended that examination bodies and mathematics teachers should consider examination of mathematical knowledge to include requirements for students to explain and justify connections and relationships among concepts. Keywords: Cognitive guided instruction, conceptual understanding

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