Influence of School Location and Interest in Secondary School Students’ Academic Achievement in Mathematics Niger State Nigeria

This study assessed the influence of school location and interest on secondary school students’ academic achievement in mathematics in Niger state, Nigeria. Correlation Survey design was adopted for the study. The target population for this study consisted of 5,368 (2,705 males and 2,663 females) JSS 1 students in the 2012/2013 academic session from 92 public and private Junior Secondary Schools in Zone ’B’ of Niger State. The sample of this study consisted of 361 (265 students in urban area and 96 students in rural areas) and multi-stage stratified random sampling technique was employed in the selection. Two instruments were developed for the study which consisted of an Inventory on Students’ Interest in Mathematics (ISIM) and a Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT). Descriptive statistics (mean and Standard Deviation), biseria correlation and its associated simple regression of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method were used to establish relationship between the variables and to test null hypothesis at the 0.05 level of significance. The instruments were validated and the reliability coefficient was established using the test-retest method. The data obtained were analyzed using mean with the criterion mean set at 2.5. The findings of the study revealed that there is a significant relationship between interestand urban students’ achievement in mathematics; and significant relationship between interest and rural students’ achievements in Mathematics test. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended amongst other things that Government should provide incentives that will attract qualified teachers in having interest in teaching in the rural areas and parents in rural areas should help their children to maintain interest in mathematics. This can be done through adopting good strategies.