Contributory influence of pre admission qualifications and demographic factors of federal colleges of agriculture students on their attitude towards mathematics courses.

Abstract

Over the years many researchers have sought to find out the factors that affect students' attitude towards mathematics To some students, mathematics is a difficult subject which ought not to be made compulsory. Despite the importance of mathematics in the colleges of agriculture, the attitude of the students to mathematics has not changed significantly. The observed attitude is likely explainable by the students' demographic factors and their pre admission qualification. This study, therefore, investigated students' demographic factors (i.e sex of the student, age of the students, father's highest qualification, mother's highest qualification, father's occupation, mother's occupation) and pre admission qualification and unified tertiary matriculation examination score) as predictors of their attitude towards mathematics This study is a survey type that adopted correlational approach. Four hundred and four (404) students of the colleges that sat for 2010 UTME and were admitted into Federal College of Forestry Ibadan and Federal College of Animal Health and Production Technology Ibadan were used for this study. Data was collected using Score Sheets for UTME SSCE scores. and Attitude Towards Mathematics Questionnaire (Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficient = 0.87).The data collected was analysed using multiple regression. The result showed that the students' demographic factors and the pre admission qualification jointly accounted for 5.5% of attitude towards mathematics. The findings of this study also revealed that among all the independent variables, only UTME scores (β= .170; t = 3.401; p<O,05) and students age(β = -.169; t = -3.462; p <0.05) were significant factors that influenced attitude towards mathematics. Based on the finding, institutions should insist on students having the required minimum UTME scores because it will help them in admitting students who will have positive attitude towards their courses.