Abstract:
The low performance of students in public examinations in Senior Secondary School (SSS)
subjects has been a source of concern to scholars and other stakeholders in education. Previous
studies showed that quantitative Economics is difficult for students due to the teaching
approaches adopted. Various research efforts geared towards improving students’ achievement,
learning and assessment-mode’s attitudes towards Quantitative Economics through diverse
instructional approaches have not achieved impressive outcome. Hence, there is the need for
adopting teaching approaches that are both conceptual and experiential in nature to improve
students’ performance, learning and assessment-mode’s attitudes in quantitative economics.
This study was, therefore, designed to explore the effects of declarative and EnhancedDeclarative (ED) knowledge approaches on students’ achievement, learning and assessmentmode attitudes in Quantitative Economics contents in SSS in Oyo town. The moderating effects
of numerical ability and gender were likewise examined.
Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) and Gagne’s Systematisation theories guided
the study, while a 3X3X2 factorial, non-randomised quasi-experimental design was adopted.
The selection of three Local Government Areas and nine public senior secondary schools were
purposively done while two hundred and nine from five thousand seven hundred and sixty-six
SSS 2 students were considered. Data were gathered utilizing Quantitative Economics
Achievement Test (r= 0.96), Economics Students’ Learning Attitude Scale (r= 0.82),
Economics Students’ Assessment Attitude Scale (r = 0.89) and Numerical Ability Test (r= 0.81).
Two teaching manuals used for the study were Declarative knowledge and ED knowledge.
Descriptive analysis, Analysis of Covariance and Sidak post-hoc test were used to analyse at α
0.05.
There were significant main effects of treatment (F(2,194)=19.66, η2 = 0.17), gender (F(1,194)=5.33,
η2 = 0.03) and numerical ability (F(2,194)=17.57, η2 = 0.15) on students’ achievement in
quantitative economics. Treatment, gender and numerical ability were not significant on
learning and assessment-mode attitudes in quantitative economics. The participants in ED
group had the highest adjusted mean score ( x=19.07) followed by the control group (x
=15.98). Female students had the maximum mean score (x=16.88), while high ability
participants had the uppermost mean score in numerical ability (x=17.19) followed by
medium ability (x=16.20), and this implies that factor like gender can affect students’
performance with respect to their numerical ability levels. The two-way and three-way
interaction effects were not significant on students' achievement, learning attitude and
assessment-mode attitude in quantitative economics. Students with high ability in groups had
the highest mean scores in achievement. The result of the mean score suggests that female
participants performed better than male colleagues in the numerical ability test.
Enhanced-declarative knowledge approach improved students’ achievement in Quantitative
Economics, regardless of gender and numerical ability in senior secondary schools in Oyo
town. This study further suggest that this knowledge approach is better when relevant examples
are used in the course of teaching and learning of quantitative economics.Writers of Economics
textbooks should explore modules of the teaching enhanced-declarative knowledge approach
and come up with texts that will promote internalisation of quantitative Economics.
