Educational Research and Human Development ISSN: 3007-6943 DOI: https://doi.org/10.61784/erhd3027 © By the Author(s) 2025, under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0). ECONOMIC HARDSHIP AND STUDENTS’ATTITUDE TOWARD MATHEMATICS LEARNING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN OYO METROPOLIS, OYO STATE, NIGERIA Kamoru Abiodun SABITU 1* , Olubiyi Johnson EZEKIEL 2 , Oluwafunmike Oyenike EZEKIEL 1 , Taofeek Oyesola LAMIDI 1 , Akinlolu SOLADEMI 3 1 Department of Science Education, School of General Studies Education, Federal College of Education (Special), Oyo, Oyo State, Nigeria. 2 Department of Integrated Science, School of Secondary Education (Science Programmes), Federal College of Education (Special), Oyo, Oyo State, Nigeria. 3 American Christian Academy, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Corresponding Author: Kamoru Abiodun SABITU,Email: sabitu.kamoru1584@fcesoyo.edu.ng Abstract: This study is focused on how economic hardship influences the attitude of students towards mathematics learning in secondary schools Oyo metropolis, Oyo state, Nigeria. The study was carried out among secondary school students. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design in which six hundred and ninety-nine (699) from the population of six thousand five hundred and fifty-five (6,555) SS2 students in 33 public secondary schools in the three Local Government Areas of Oyo metropolis, Oyo State, Nigeria were randomly selected using Slovin’s Formula. The instrument used for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire validated by experts. A reliability coefficient of 0.88 was established. The study was driven by three research questions and data collected were analysed using mean and standard deviation. The study revealed that the attitudes students exhibit toward mathematics learning as a result of economic hardship are negative and the extent to which economic hardship influences students' learning in mathematics is very high. Based on the findings it was recommended among others that mathematics teachers should make mathematics classes livelier by making the class activities based. Keywords: Economic hardship; Students’ attitude; Learning; Mathematics 1 INTRODUCTION The economy is a determinant of the wealth or resources of a country notably in terms of the production and consumption of products and services. In the past decade, Nigeria's economy was seen and ranked as one of Africa faster faster-expanding economies until lately when the economy plunged into recession. The economic situation in Nigeria is very tough which may contribute to unfavourable attitude towards learning especially mathematics. Most pupils cannot afford the basic demands of life which may generate an unsettled mind and this in turn may hamper learning. Economic hardship is considered as the inability to meet fundamental demands of life such as food, shelter, and clothing. According to the Cambridge Business English dictionary [1], economic hardship is said to be trouble caused by having too little money or too few resources. There is an economic recession in Nigeria which impacts all sectors including the educational sector [2]. Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) published a communique following her National Executive Meeting (NEC) which says the difficult economic circumstances in the country have caused mass poverty and hunger among millions of Nigerians. It also read that, prices of food and basic products are on the increase regularly and that many families can hardly get one meal in a day [3]. In an economic crisis, the economy is dramatically slowed down which is characterized by a reduction in wage rate, scarcity or insufficiency of funds, unemployment and poverty. The aforementioned variables affect students' educational results in terms of school enrollment, attendance, attainment and performance. Most institutions in Nigeria are encountering economic limitations and this slows down the pace of achieving the institution's tasks [4]. Economic difficulties may force some pupils to drop out of school completely. Also, economic adversity influences children’s labour actions whether in the household or the labour market. Economic hardship produces a reduction in adult income which makes it harder for parents to fully compensate for the cost of education such as tuition fees, purchasing of educational materials like books, uniforms, private lessons and so on. Many of them depend on their parents for their income and the parents are also going through hard times economically. This may also encourage child labour to supplement the household income. Recently, the cashless policy in the nation has brought tremendous pain to the population in which pupils are included. Some pupils lose concentration in the classroom easily since some of the students trek great distances to school which may lead to tiredness and they may exhibit little enthusiasm in learning. This may warrant the loss of interest in academic activities considering the nature of mathematics as a subject and may expose the student to spending more time in labour or hawking more than studying and this may cause truancy, and lack of concentration in school which may eventually reduce academic performance or drop out of school [5]. The present incidence of economic crisis has caused