Factors Influencing Learning Outcomes Of Primary School Pupils In Tanzania: A Case Study Of Mathematics Subject In Morogoro Municipality

ABSTRACT

Mathematics is essential for daily life and plays a crucial role in school curricula; yet students‘ performance in it remains very low worldwide, Tanzania not being exceptional. This study intended to find out whether teacher characteristics, teaching methods, use of teaching resources and student attitudes towards mathematics affect students‗ performance in mathematics or not. The study was conducted in Morogoro region at Morogoro municipality, which has a total of sixty seven primary schools with population of 35329. The study employed a survey research design. Stratified sampling technique was used to select 20 primary schools for the study. Three research instruments namely, mathematics teachers‘ questionnaires, pupil‘s questionnaires, interview questions for District Education Officer were employed. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to get descriptive statistics such as, percentages, frequencies and tabulations. The results were presented in frequency tables and charts. The observations were discussed correspondingly to the research questions and objectives. The study found that 73.4% of the teachers felt that teacher‘s qualification played a major role in poor pupils‘ performance in mathematics. Incidentally, lecture and questioning approaches of teaching mathematics were the most preferred methods used in mathematics classes in Morogoro municipality, leading to pupils‘ poor performance. Methods of providing feedback to students were inadequate. In review of these findings, the study concluded that there was need to address for mathematics education such as teacher training curriculum reviewed in Tanzania. For this reason the study recommended the following: ministry of education and umbrella groups should harmonize the policy of teaching mathematics by organizing in-service trainings for mathematics teachers with regard to teaching methods and use of resources.