REACT instructional strategy and secondary school students’ mathematics achievement: Gender inclusivity and implications for distance mathematics education

Persistent difficulties in mathematics achievement highlight the need for instructional approaches that connect abstract concepts with learners’ experiences and promote active engagement. This study examined the effect of the Relating, Experiencing, Applying, Cooperating, and Transferring (REACT) instructional strategy on senior secondary school students’ mathematics achievement, considering gender and implications for distance mathematics education. A pretest–posttest quasi-experimental design with a control group involved 80 Senior Secondary School II students from two purposively selected schools in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, Nigeria. The experimental group received REACT-based instruction, while the control group received conventional instruction. Data were collected using a 25-item Mathematics Achievement Test with a reliability coefficient of 0.88 and analyzed using descriptive statistics and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Results showed that students exposed to REACT achieved higher post-test scores than those taught conventionally, with instructional strategy significantly affecting mathematics achievement. Gender had no significant effect, and no significant interaction between instructional strategy and gender was found, indicating comparable outcomes for male and female students. The findings support REACT as an inclusive, constructivist-oriented approach and provide a pedagogical basis for adapting its contextual, collaborative, experiential, and transfer-oriented principles to blended and distance mathematics learning environments in future studies.