Students’ Self-Efficacy in Senior Secondary School Mathematics: Academic Engagement as 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 but when properly engage 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. 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. 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). Further more emotional engagement significantly contributes to the variance in students’ self-efficacy in Mathematics (F = 667.409, p<0.05). Result 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.