Students’ Self-Efficacy in Senior Secondary School Mathematics: Academic Engagement as a Predictor Variable

Abstract

Students who lack confidence believe that they cannot accomplish a work, view the activity as pointless, and as a consequence, don't want to put any time or effort into it when properly engaged brings about traits that are needed in a student, hence academic engagement is seen as a potential antidote to the issue of students’ self-efficacy in mathematics. Therefore, this paper investigated student’s self-efficacy in senior secondary school mathematics as being predicted using academic engagement. An ex-post facto correlational research design was used. 1680 students from Senior Secondary School II made up the study's sample from the twenty-one randomly selected schools in the three Local Government Areas of Remo division of Ogun State, Nigeria. Mathematics Student Academic Engagement Scale (MSAES) with  and Mathematics Self Efficacy Scale (MSES) with  . Findings showed that cognitive engagement significantly predicts self-efficacy of students in Mathematics (F = 527.320, p<0.05). Also, behavioural engagement significantly contributes to the variance in students’ self-efficacy in Mathematics (F = 759.251, p<0.05). Furthermore, emotional engagement significantly contributes to the variance in students’ self-efficacy in Mathematics (F = 667.409, p<0.05). Results also revealed that the predictor variables cognitive, behavioural and emotional engagement when taken together significantly contribute to the variance in students’ self-efficacy in Mathematics (F = 380.151, p<0.05). This study concluded that cognitive, emotional and behavioural engagements are good predictors of senior secondary school students’ mathematics self-efficacy. To increase students' self-efficacy in mathematics, stakeholders in Nigerian education are advised to ensure that students are engaged cognitively, emotionally, and behaviourally.