Students’ Mathematics Interest Development in Ghana- the Role of Parental Involvement and Agents of Student Motivation

Abstract

Parental influence on the student’s mathematics interest development process cannot be neglected if achievement in mathematics is connected to the student’s’ interest in mathematics. The advances in research regarding parental association to their children interest in terms of achievement, attitude and beliefs proves that parental values and beliefs system shape the student’s values and performance. The study aims at exploring the effect of parent’s level of education, parent’s mathematics interest, as well as determining the role parental motivation play towards the student’s mathematics interest development. In addition, the study also determined the effect of student’s agent of motivation on student interest in mathematics. The study randomly selected 1,263 participants from ten randomly selected secondary schools in Ghana. Survey questionnaires were used to investigate parental involvement in student’s interest in mathematics. We used SPSS version 16 to generate all statistics and tables. The non- parametric Chi-square test of independence was used to investigate the effect of parental factors on students’ interest in mathematics. The findings suggest that students’ interest in mathematics is influenced by their parents’ educational background, parents’ interest in mathematics, and agent of student motivation but independent on parental motivation. The study concluded that parental involvement is very essential in the interest development process, and could improve performance when taken seriously.