Students’ Mathematics Achievement and Quantitative Reasoning Ability in Junior Secondary Schools in Rivers State Nigeria

Aptitude tests are used globally for academic admission and job placement. This study, therefore, employed the correlational research design to investigate the relationship between students’ Mathematics achievement and quantitative reasoning ability in junior secondary schools in Rivers State Nigeria. Three objectives, three research questions and three null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 alpha level. The population was 1, 853 junior secondary school three (JSS3) students in the public co-educational junior secondary schools in Asari-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria. A 2-stage simple random sampling technique was used to select a sample of sixty-one students. Two validated and reliable instruments titled Mathematics Cognitive Achievement Test (MCAT; r =0.81) and Quantitative Reasoning Ability Test (QRAT; r =0.73) were used to collect data. All the sample students were taught some selected Mathematics topics and how to observe, identify patterns and apply basic mathematical skills to resolve quantitative reasoning test items. Mean, standard deviation and Pearson Product Correlation was used for analysis. The result showed that there is a moderate positive relationship between students’ Mathematics achievement and their quantitative reasoning ability. Gender wise, the result revealed that there is a moderate positive relationship between the female students’ Mathematics achievement and their quantitative reasoning ability while there is a positive fair relationship between the male students’ Mathematics achievement and their quantitative reasoning ability. It was therefore recommended amongst others that quantitative reasoning should be learnt in schools as a subject on its own to allow more time for grooming of its skills and processes