Assessment of students’ creative thinking ability in mathematical tasks at senior secondary school level

The study was carried out to assess students’ creative thinking ability in mathematical tasks at senior secondary school level in Nsukka Education Zone of Enugu State, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was six thousand three hundred and thirty (6330) Senior Secondary II (SS11) students in sixty one (61) governments’ owned secondary schools. The sample size of two hundred and thirty four (234) students was drawn using simple random sampling from 6 sampled schools. The instrument for data collection was a 20-item mathematical question (problem posing and open ended). The reliability coefficient of 0.81 was obtained using Kuder-Richardson (KR-20) formula. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer research questions 1 and 2 while the null hypotheses 1 and 2 was tested using t- test statistic at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that the achievement of students was not good enough as it is below average. It was recommended among others that students should be provided with opportunities to engage in struggling to solve mathematics problems which are ill posed or open ended. Solving such challenging mathematics problems could lead students to experience creativity in doing mathematics. The findings of the study have implications for teachers and all stakeholders of education that only creative teachers can train creative students

Evaluation of teachers’ implementation of curriculum content areas in junior secondary schools science subject: Evaluation of teachers’ implementation of curriculum

This study evaluated teachers’ implementation of basic science curriculum content areas in junior secondary schools in Nsukka Education Zone of Enugu State, Nigeria. Four research questions were posed and three null hypotheses were formulated to guide the conduct of the study. The study employed evaluation research design (survey method). The population of this study consists of 32 Basic Science teachers drawn from 31 state owned Junior Secondary Schools in Nsukka Zone of Enugu State, Nigeria. The sample for the study consisted of 32 Basic Science teachers constituting 100% of the total population size. The instrument for data collection was 37-item questionnaire for teachers titled “Teachers’ Implementation of Basic Science Curriculum Questionnaire (TIBSCQ)” developed by the researcher based on Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) curriculum. 32 questionnaires were administered and returned. The reliability of the instrument was tested using Cronbach’s Alpha which yielded the internal consistency of the reliability coefficient of 0.927. The data collected from the study were analyzed using means and standard deviations to answer the research questions and t-test was used to test hypothesis one and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test hypotheses two and three at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that gender has no influence in teachers’ implementation of Basic Science curriculum content areas. While Basic Science teachers’ education qualifications and teaching experiences significantly influenced the implementation of Basic Science curriculum content areas in junior secondary school. It was recommended among others that to improve the academic performance of junior secondary school students Basic Science, government should employ professional, qualified and experienced teachers