ENHANCING STUDENTS’ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE THROUGH UTILIZATION OF ETHNO-MATHEMATICS AND ETHNO-BASIC SCIENCE IN CROSS RIVER STATE, NIGERIA.

Inah, L.I
Ekon,E.E.
Ekwueme,C.O.
Adie E.B.
Okri J.A.
Idiege K.J.
Department of Science Education Faculty of
Vocational and Science Education University
of Calabar, Calabar
Email: olunwa1@yahoo.com and esthyl.rhemacare@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
This study investigated the effect of ethno-mathematics and ethno-basic science on students’ academic
performance in Calabar Municipality. The study adopted a quasi-experimental pretest posttest design.
The population comprised all the four thousand, five hundred and seventy-six (4,576) Junior
Secondary School Student sin the fourteen (14) Government-owned schools in the study area. Four(4)
schools were randomly selected as sample with two (2) schools selected for experimental group and the
other two (2) for control group with the total number of 160 students (an intact class of eighty students
in each of the groups). The instrument used for data collection was Mathematics and Basic Science
Achievement Test (MBSAT) comprising 25 questions on mathematics for section A and 25 questions on
basic science for section B which were scored separately. The instrument went through face and
content validity with the reliability coefficient of 0.89 and 0.78 respectively using Kuder Richardson
(KR21). Four research questions were answered using descriptive statistics of mean and standard
deviations while the four hypotheses were tested using t-test statistic at 0.05 level of significance.
Major findings of the study revealed that ethno-mathematics and ethno-basic science enhances
effective learning of mathematics and basic science. The mean performance score difference between
male and female students was negligible, thus the strategy is gender friendly. It was thus recommended
among others that Junior Secondary School teachers should adopt the use of ethno-mathematics and
ethno-basic science in the teaching of these subjects.