This study examined the adoption of jigsaw and individual personalization instructional strategies for improving the interest of senior secondary school students in mathematics. The moderating effects of students’ gender and socioeconomic status were also examined. The study adopted the pre-test-post-test, control group, quasi experimental design with a 3x3x2 factorial matrix. Two hundred and fifty senior secondary two students from six public schools purposively selected from three local educational districts in Lagos-Nigeria participated in the study. Three research questions were answered and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 significant level. Four instruments were developed, validated and used for data collection. Data were analysed using percentages, Bar-charts and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The findings showed that there were significant main effect of treatment, gender and Socio-economic-status (SES) on students’ interest in Mathematics F(2, 231)= 27.88; p<0.05; F(1, 231) = 10.64; p<0.05; F(2, 231) = 5.19; p<0.05 respectively. Students exposed to Jigsaw Strategy had the highest post interest score; males students were above their female counterparts in all groups, while those of high SES had the highest post interest score. It further revealed that the 3-way interactions showed no significant interaction effects of treatment, gender and SES on students’ interest in Mathematics F(4, 231) = 1.27; p>0.05.. It was recommended that Mathematics teachers should be trained to use both Jigsaw and conventional approaches in the classroom, since they were more effective in arousing and increasing students’ interest in Mathematics than the individual personalization instructional strategy.
Keywords: Gender, Jigsaw Instruction, SES, Students’ Interest in Mathematics
