Effects of Peer-Dialogic Discourses on Science Students’ Performance in Differential Calculus
Authors: Bakare Abiola Basirat , Amao David Onaolapo , Akanmu Morenikeji Alex , Folorunsho Salman Prof. Medinat 
Published: January 2025

Further Mathematics is essentially a subject, where solving problem is more prominent than reading. It was designed to provide means to worthwhile and challenging mathematical learning in a way that takes into accounts the necessity and aspirations of a wide range of learners. Science students’ performance in Calculus has not been encouraging and has been concern to researchers. Factors that affect the performance of students include the fact that calculus involves abstract and complex ideas, inadequate understanding and interest on the part of students and teachers’ inability to use innovative and differentiated instructions. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of peer-dialogic discourse on science students’ performance in differential calculus. Specifically, the study investigated: (i) effects of the peer-dialogic and teacher- presentation discourses on students’ performance in calculus; (ii) influence of gender on the performance of students when taught calculus using peer-dialogic discourse; (iii) influence of score levels on the performance of students when taught calculus using peer-dialogic discourse. This study adopted the pre-test post-test non-randomized non-equivalent control group design of the quasi-experimental research design. The pre-test post-test of 2x2x3 was used with experimental levels, that is discourse patterns, occurring at 2 levels (peer-dialogic and teacher-presentation discourses), gender at 2 levels (male and female) and the students’ score levels also at 3 levels (high, medium and low scoring students). One hundred and thirty-one (131) science students that were selected from four purposively sampled schools participated in the study. The validated research instrument, Further Mathematics Performance Test on Calculus (FMPT-C) was used for the study. The reliability coefficient of the test was 0.87 and it was obtained using Pearson’s Product-Moment Correlation. The research hypotheses were tested using the t-test and the Analysis of Co-variance .Findings from the study revealed that there is: (i) a significant difference in the performance of students taught using peer-dialogic and those taught using teacher-presentation discourse, p< 0.05, t=8.77 in favour of those taught peer-dialogic discourse; (ii) no significant difference in the performance of male and female science students when taught calculus using peer-dialogic and teacher-presentation discourses, (iii) no significant difference in the performance of high, medium and low scorers when taught using peer and peer-dialogic discourse but there is significant difference in the performance of high, medium and low scorers when taught using dialogic discourse, p< 0.05 F(2, 58)=7.40 respectively. The study concluded that science students that were taught calculus using peer-dialogic discourses performed better than those taught using teacher-presentation discourse. This implies that the use of the various discourse patterns will go a long way in assisting teachers and students in the teaching and learning of calculus respectively. The study then recommended that teachers of further mathematics should adopt the use of peer-dialogic discourse in teaching calculus and all other concepts in further mathematics.