The Use of Soft Skills and Students' Academic Achievement in Mathematics in Ikom Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study is to examine the use of soft skills and students'academicachievement in Mathematics in Ikom Local Government Area of Cross River State.Toachieve the purpose of this study,four research questions were posed and translated intofour hypotheses statements which were tested at 0.05 level of significance.Literaturesrelated to the four variables under study were reviewed accordingly.Survey researchdesign was adopted for the study.This research design was considered appropriatebecause it allowed the researcher to make inference and generalization of the existingpopulation.A sample of two hundred (200)students was randomly selected for the study.The selection was done through the simple random sampling technique.This was toensure that every member of the population area was given equal and independentopportunity of being selected for the study.A twenty(20)item four-point Likert scalemathematics soft skills questionnaire(MSSQ)and mathematics achievement test (MAT)were the instrument used for data collection.The instrument was subjected to both faceand content validation by an expert in test and measurement and by the supervisor.Theestablish the reliability,test,re-test reliability method was adopted.To test thehypotheses,Pearson product moment correlation statistical technique and independent t-test where used to analyse the data.The findings revealed that,there is a significantinfluence of time management skills,problem solving skills,communication skills andself-motivation on students'academic achievement in Mathematics.Based on thesefindings,it was recommended that school administrators(principals),teachers andeducation authorities should prioritise the use of soft skills in teaching and learning ofMathematics.