Browsing by Author "Abdi, Bahiya"

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    The influence of classroom treatment and instructional practices on female students’ participation and performance in mathematics in secondary schools: a study of the co - educational government secondary schools in the Moshi urban district
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2010) Abdi, Bahiya
    The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of classroom treatment and instructional practices on female students' participation and performance in mathematics in the secondary schools. The study design used largely a qualitative approach and it supplemented by quantitative elements. Sample respondents of the study include 210 female students, 14 mathematics teachers and 5 academic masters from 5 co-educational government secondary schools. Data for this study were collected through a questionnaire, observation schedule, post classroom observation interview guide, focus group discussion guide and document search guide, and were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. Further the key findings of this study indicated that female students' participation in mathematics lessons was generally low compared to their male counterparts. The study also revealed that low classroom participation in mathematics lessons among female students resulted partly from classroom practices such as question and answer teaching techniques, negative criticism, lack of proper attention and favoritism among students. However, the qualitative results indicated that there was no difference in female students' participation in the classes taught by male teachers and that of female teachers. The study concludes that female students can actively participate in mathematics classroom and answer high level type of questions as male students only if female students are equally treated during the teaching and learning process. It is concluded that in order to encourage female students' participation in mathematics lessons, other attributes of teaching and learning process such as students- teacher, students—students and teacher-student interaction patterns, and nature of the strategies used need to be improved.