International Symposium on Mathematical Sciences and Computing Research 2013 (iSMSC 2013)

6-7 December 2013, Perak, MALAYSIA. Paper ID.:ST _05

133

Students’ Perception Towards Mathematics :

Attitudes, Interest And Lecturers’ Teaching

Siti Farah Haryatie Mohd Kanafiah, Azlina Jumadi

Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences

Universiti Teknologi MARA

Johor, Malaysia

sitif315@johor.uitm.edu.my

Abstract— The aim of this study was to examine the level of

students’ attitude and interest in Mathematics, students’

perception on their Mathematics lecturer and Mathematics

subject itself. This study also determined the relationship

between students’ perception on Mathematics and their

Mathematics performance. There were 150 students out of 189

students taking Calculus I on Semester December 2012 until Mac

2013 at UiTM Cawangan Johor involved in the survey. The

questionnaire (α=0. 774) was developed and administered to the

respondents. The data collected were analyzed using inference

methods (Pearson correlation and t-test) by using a Statistical

Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 for Windows.

Data analysis indicated that the level of students’ perception on

Mathematics subject from both computer sciences and

Mathematics students were high. The result shows that there was

a negative linear and a moderate significant correlation between

students’ perception on Mathematics and their Mathematics

result.

Keywords- Attitude; Interest; Students’ perception; Mathematics

achievement; Lecturers’ teaching

I. INTRODUCTION

Attitude is an internal matter and difficult to understand. Attitude plays an important role to achieve the target in many things. When a person fails in their life, many people said that he probably has a bad attitude. In school, the teachers often state that the failure rate in subjects relates to the negative attitude such as laziness.

As in [1], the students' performance in certain subjects depends on their attitude towards the subject. Positive attitude towards the subjects will encourage a person to learn the subject much better.

According to [2], students' attitudes need to be fostered throughout the process of teaching and learning in order to have a good achievement. The ability of students to use the knowledge is a measure of the effectiveness of teaching and learning processes. A positive attitude can motivate students‘ critical thinking, being active in the classroom, working together in groups, improve interaction and communication skills.

In a study conducted by [3] have found that the interest has a positive influence on student achievement in Mathematics. This can be seen from the dedication and efforts of students in learning Mathematics. Besides, the survey from [4] found that it should probably be differentiated between a general interest in Mathematics and an interest in mathematical activities which go beyond the level of calculations and simple algorithms. The high interest in a particular subject also influences the level of student achievement and will encourage students to study in depth [5].

Teaching style used in the process of teaching and learning has a significant impact on students' interest and understanding of a subject. Lecturers‘ teaching is one of the factors to determine students‘ achievement in a subject [6]. In another survey, [7] states the appearance and presentation styles of teaching and learning play an important role in efforts to enhance students' understanding. When the students‘ perception of their teachers‘ is low, students‘ attitude towards Mathematics tends to be negative as stated in [8] .

The lecturers and students should cooperate each other in teaching and learning process. The lecturers should try their best to educate the students. In order to encourage the students to practice their preferred learning approach, a conducive environment needs to be implemented by the lecturer. The lecturers also should put in effort to increase the use of materials and teaching aids to make the process of learning easily understood. [9, 10] .

The findings of the study conducted by [11] found that

students‘ perception of teachers‘ knowledge of subject matter,

attitude to work and teaching skills has a significant

relationship to students‘ academic performance.

II. PROBLEM OF THE STUDY

There are a lot of students are not able to apply mathematical concepts and skills they have learned during their study. The difficulties of students to understand the basic concepts will affect mathematical learning. What are the criteria used by a student in learning Mathematics? Therefore, this study had been conducted to see whether the students‘ perception of Mathematics will contribute the high percentage of failure rate or not.

International Symposium on Mathematical Sciences and Computing Research 2013 (iSMSC 2013)

6-7 December 2013, Perak, MALAYSIA. Paper ID.:ST _05

134

In UiTM Cawangan Johor, Calculus I is a compulsory subject for student of Diploma In Quantitative Science (CS113) and Diploma In Computer Science (CS110). Based on the final exam analysis results, there were 70 % ( 75 out of 107) of computer science students and 19.5 % ( 16 out of 82) of Mathematics students failed Calculus I. According to the high failure rate, this paper concern to investigate the perception of students to their Mathematics lecturer, the students‘ attitude and their interest towards a Mathematics subject.

A. Research Question

This research was carried out to answer the following question:

1. What is the level of students‘ attitude and interest towards the Mathematics subject between computer sciences and Mathematics‘ students?

2. How does students‘ perception of their lecturers‘ teaching ability?

3. What is the relationship between students‘ perception towards Mathematics and their Mathematics result?

III. METHODOLOGY

The study was conducted using a survey method. A structured questionnaire was given to all diploma students in Computer Science and Mathematics taking Calculus 1 in UiTM Cawangan Johor. This study is descriptive research that aims to describe a phenomenon that is happening.

A. Conceptual framework

Figure 1 : Students‘ perception and Mathematics result.

Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework of students‘

perception and Mathematics result. There are three

components of students‘ perception which are interest, attitude

and lecturers‘ teaching. This study will examine the

correlation between Mathematics result of Computer Science

and Mathematics students and their perceptions of

Mathematics subject.

B. Population and Sample

The population of the research consisted of all full time diploma students in computer sciences (107) and quantitative science (82) at UiTM Cawangan Johor. There were 150 students (Computer Science=87 and Quantitative Science=63) out of 189 students taking Calculus I on Semester December 2012 until Mac 2013 involved in the survey. The size of the sample was determined based on Krejcie and Morgan formula [12].

C. Instrument

The research instrument was a questionnaire consisting of two parts, Part A and Part B. Part A requested biographical information regarding gender, age, field of study and Mathematics subjects taken in semester December 2012 – March 2013. Part B consisted of 36 questions. The set of questionnaire with 36 items included the following: attitudes, interests and lecturers‘ teaching is based on a 5 point Likert scale. (See Table 1). Positive items were rated from strongly agree (5), agree (4), neutral (3), disagree (2) and strongly disagree (1) while negative items were scored in the reverse order.

The Cronbarch Alpha test was used to determine the reliability index of the instrument. The Cronbarch Alpha for the instrument is 0.77 showed that items are consistent and reliable [13].

TABLE I. DISTRIBUTION OF ITEMS BASED ON DOMAIN

DOMAIN NO. OF ITEM ALPHA

VALUES,

ATTITUDE 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 0.80

INTEREST 13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24 0.50

LECTURERS‘

TEACHING

25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36 0.77

D. Mathematics Result

Information on Mathematics results will base on their

diploma final examination results. It was collected from their

academic records in the University. The following are the

categorical result obtain by the students.

TABLE II. RESULT INDICATOR

Students’ result Level

A+ Very good A, A– Good

B+, B, B– Credit

C+, C Pass C–, D+, D, E, F Fail

STUDENTS‘ PERCEPTION

INTEREST

ATTITUDE

LECTURERS‘

TEACHING

MATHEMATICS

RESULT

International Symposium on Mathematical Sciences and Computing Research 2013 (iSMSC 2013)

6-7 December 2013, Perak, MALAYSIA. Paper ID.:ST _05

135

E. Data Analysis

Data collected were analyzed using Pearson‘s Product-

Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) to measure the strength

and direction of the relationship between students‘ perception

and Mathematics result. Besides, t-test was used to determine

the level of students‘ attitude and interest and the perception

of their lecturers‘ teaching ability.

IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The findings of this study were mainly based on the quantitative data gathered from the respondents using a developed set of questionnaires.

A. The Level of Students’ Attitude and Interest Towards

Mathematics

Table 3 shows the mean value of two domains (interest and attitude) between CS110 and CS113.

TABLE III. LEVEL OF ATTITUDE AND INTEREST AMONG CS110 AND

CS113 STUDENTS

Domain Mean

Score

SD t-value df p-

value

Attitude

CS110

CS113

3.64

3.90

0.41

0.41

3.78

148

0.99

Interest

CS110 CS113

3.55 3.92

0.40 0.47

5.26

148

0.22

Indicator for mean score:

Very high – 4.21 until 5.00

High – 3.41 until 4.20

Moderate – 2.61 until 3.40 Weak – 1.81 until 2.60

Very weak – 1 until 1.8 Source: Quek Miow Leng (2006), [3]

Based on table 3, the results indicate that the mean score for CS110 students‘ attitude and interest was 3.64 and 3.55 respectively and CS113 students‘ attitude and interest were 3.90 and 3.92 respectively (standard deviation (attitude) = 0.41 for both programs and interest = 0.40 for CS110 and 0.47 for CS113). Means that the level of the student‘s attitude is high for both programs. The results also reveal no significant differences between CS110 and CS113 students‘ for both students‘ attitude and interest (p-value(attitude)=0.99, p-value(interest)=0.22).

Overall, the students‘ attitude and interest towards the Mathematics subject for both programs is good that is in line with other studies elsewhere [1] and [5]. This is probably because when students work in a group, they feel they can depend on others for help and therefore increase their confidence in solving Mathematics problem.

B. Students’ Perception on Lecturers’ Teaching

Table 4 shows the mean value of students‘ perception of their lecturers‘ teaching ability among CS110 and CS113 students.

TABLE IV. STUDENTS‘ PERCEPTION ON LECTURERS‘ TEACHING AMONG

CS110 AND CS113 STUDENTS

Domain Mean

Score

SD t-value df p-

value

CS110

CS113

4.16

4.19

0.34

0.38

0.45

148

0.459

Based on table 4, the results indicate that the mean score for CS110 and CS113 students‘ perception of their lecturers‘ teaching was 4.16 and 4.19 respectively with standard deviation (CS110) = 0.34 and (CS113) = 0.38. This means that the level of students‘ perception is high for both programs. The results also reveal no significant differences between CS110 and CS113 students‘ perception on their lecturer (p-value=0.459).

This result is in line with other study [3] and shows that the lecturer must have a deep understanding of the contents by topic they are teaching. This will lead the best explanation which the concepts can be easily understood by the students.

C. The Relationship Between Students’ Perception and

Mathematics result

The main objective of the study is to identify whether there was a significant relationship between students‘ perception towards Mathematics and Mathematics result of Computer Science and Mathematics students in UiTM Cawangan Johor.

TABLE V. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENTS‘ PERCEPTION AND

MATHEMATICS‘ RESULT

Mathematics Result

Perceptions Pearson Correlation, r -0.496

Sig. (2 tailed) 0.000*

*p < 0.01

Indicator

Very high – 0.91 until 1.0

High – 0.71 until 0.9 Moderate – 0.41 until 0.7

Weak – 0.21 until 0.4

Very weak – 0.00 until 0.2 Source: Quek Miow Leng (2006), [3]

Table 5 displays the Pearson Product Moment correlation between Students‘ perception and Mathematics result. The result (r = -0.496, p > 0.01) shows that there was a negative linear and a moderate significant relationship in students‘ perception. This may be due to CS110 students are not

International Symposium on Mathematical Sciences and Computing Research 2013 (iSMSC 2013)

6-7 December 2013, Perak, MALAYSIA. Paper ID.:ST _05

136

interested in Mathematics and did not like to do more exercise in Mathematics subject.

V. RECOMMENDATION

This study was conducted only to the students of UiTM Cawangan Johor and randomly selected samples of male and female students. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized to all Computer Science and Mathematics diploma students in other campus, since it's not proportionate to respective populations.

Further research could be conducted to investigate on the aspects of student learning styles, skills and learning strategies, lecturers‘ perception towards students and level of satisfaction with the environment. In addition, future studies could perhaps improve the generalizability by using larger samples from different campuses throughout Malaysia.

VI. CONCLUSION

The results of this study found that the students' perception

towards Mathematics is very high and encouraging. These

shows the students‘ attitude, interest and lecturers‘ teaching are

an insignificant factor in contributing the lower results in

Mathematics. This could be caused by other factors such as the

existence of a weak mathematical foundation or entry

requirements to university level should be examined in depth.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This research has been supported by Excellent Fund Universiti

Teknologi MARA (UiTM).

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