Comparative effects of critical thinking and peer-assessment skills training on Ghanaian senior high school students’ achievement in mathematics

Abstract

The study determined the comparative effects of critical thinking and peer-assessment skills training on Ghanaian senior high school students’ achievement in mathematics. The non-equivalent pre-test and post-test control group 3x2x2 factorial quasi- experimental design was adopted for the study. Three public senior high schools were randomly sampled to participate in the study and a total of one hundred and thirty- seven (137) students made up of ninety-five (95) in the experimental groups and forty- two (42) in the control group from three intact classes were selected from schools in the Central Region of Ghana. Two mathematics achievement tests, with reliability coefficients of 0.79 and 0.83 were employed by the researcher for data collection. Critical thinking and peer-assessment modules were also developed and used by the researcher for the intervention. The peer-assessment and critical thinking modules were content validated by three experts using percentage of agreement method which yielded 79% and 80% respectively. ANCOVA was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study were that: there was no significant comparative effect of critical thinking and peer-assessment skills training on students’ achievement in mathematics. Furthermore, there was no significant interaction effect of gender, age and treatment groups (critical thinking and peer-assessment) on students’ achievement in mathematics. Based on the findings, it was recommended that teachers can make use of either peer-assessment or critical thinking strategies in teaching mathematics lessons to bring about the much-needed improvement in students’ performance in Mathematics.