Teaching Strategies in Improving Students’ Engagement and Academic Achievement in Mathematics: A Quasi Experimental Study

Education

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of collaborative learning, problem–solving, and discovery learning in enhancing the student engagement and academic achievement among first-year college students at Saint Francis Xavier College. A quasi – experimental design was employed involving 60 subjects, equally divided into control and experimental groups. Academic achievement was assessed using a 45-item multiple choice test administered as both pretest and posttest, while student engagement was measured using a 33-item Likert-scale questionnaire adapted from Flores et al. (2021), with the items evenly distributed across the three dimensions: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement. The pretest results indicated that both the control and experimental groups had comparable levels of academic achievement and student engagement, confirming the equivalence of the groups before the intervention. After the implementation, the experimental group showed a notable increase in both academic achievement and engagement levels across the domains. In contrast, the control group, which received traditional instruction, exhibited only minimal improvements. Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference between the posttest scores of the experimental and control groups for both academic achievement and student engagement, demonstrating the effectiveness of interactive teaching strategies in enhancing learning outcomes and participation. It was recommended that educators are encouraged to design lessons that actively involve students in constructing knowledge and applying concepts in meaningful ways. Additionally, institutions may provide training and support for teachers to effectively implement these strategies, while future researchers can explore other interactive approaches to further optimize learning outcomes.

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