Abstract

Alarming statistics in mathematics education in Nigeria indicated that very few or almost none of the students in high school fancy taking up a course in mathematics in the University. Moreover, less than ten percent of these students enjoyed lessons in mathematics. Additionally, cultural and racial prejudice as well as poverty are serious issues confronting many of today's high school students, thus a set of thirty numerical equations to solve would not be top priority. Consequently, mathematics teachers have sought to determine how they could possibly capture the attention of teens distracted by serious problems and events in their daily lives. Although educators have made some efforts towards improving these trends, students’ disinterest in continuing mathematics study beyond secondary school level is still a tremendous problem.  In this paper, student preference of multimedia presentation in mathematics education as opposed to traditional instruction was investigated for high school students learning mathematics. The survey instrument presented a 5-point Likert scale with students rating 17 statements associated with acceptance of the presentation. Results from the survey carried out indicate that multimedia presentations can improve students’ understanding, enthusiasm, class attendance and satisfaction.

Key words: Class, high school, instruction, interest, mathematics, multimedia, student, teacher, traditional, University.