EFFECTS OF REINFOCRCEMENT STRATEGIES ON SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENTS IN MATHEMATICS.

This research was designed to study the effect of three reinforcement strategies praises, token and stories of successful and great mathematicians on mathematics achievement of secondary school students. Five hypotheses were formulated. Achievement was measured by constructing and administering mathematics objective test which was found to have significant internal consistency after subjecting the data to analysis using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). It yielded a Cronbach alpha of 0.83. The control and experimental groups were made up of a combination of 20 boys and 20 girls for the control group and 20 boys and 20 girls for the experimental group. These were randomly sampled from SSII student of Government Secondary School, Oju, made up of a total population of 150 students. The experimental group experienced treatment with the reinforcement strategies for four weeks after which both the control group and experimental group were subjected to another achievement test in which some finding emerged. It was recommended that teachers should make use of praises, tokens and success stories as means of enhancing mathematics achievement among secondary school students.