Parmjit Singh

Understanding the concepts of proportion and ratio among grade nine students in Malaysia

The purpose of the study was to investigate the concepts of ratio and proportion constructed by grade nine students by investigating grade nine students proportional reasoning schemes and procedures on three types of tasks: missing value, numerical comparison and qualitative reasoning. Comparisons among the different categories were made and the strategies used in solving these problems were identified. The relationship between student grades on a national examination and their knowledge of proportional reasoning was determined. The results of the quantitative analysis indicated that students performed generally well on the missing value tasks but their scores on the numerical comparison and qualitative tasks were much lower. The results indicate that only a small percentage of students who did well on the national exams were able to solve complex proportional problems and the grades obtained were not indicative of their knowledge of ratio and proportion. The difficulty experienced by the ninth graders indicated that students frequently used additive reasoning, that is a comparison of two numbers by subtraction rather than division. It appears that students cannot begin to understand the functional and scalar relationship inherent in a proportion until they first develop multiplicative reasoning.

Extracting factors for students’ motivation in studying mathematics

The purpose of this article is to identify factors that statistically explain the variation and the measures on the level of motivation of a sample of mathematics students in a university. Specifically, this analysis will identify groups of similar items and reduce the number of variables used in a study. This article explains the use of exploratory factor analysis in extracting factors of personal belief and motivational factors among students in learning mathematics. The adaptation of these factors can be used for assessing academic performance in relation to motivation level. By identifying these factors, the mathematics educators or researchers will be able to find ways to improve the condition of the factors and also to further investigate the factors based on confirmatory approaches.

Teaching mathematics and science in English: Looking through the eyes of teachers

This study examined the perception of Malaysian secondary school teachers on the implementation of the national policy on teaching Mathematics and Science in English which was introduced in 2003 and reversed in 2009. A total of 14 public secondary schools were randomly selected using the stratification technique throughout the nation. It was further stratified based on Math and Science teachers and the final sample comprised 154 Math and 160 Science teachers. This study employed a purely quantitative research design which entailed the administration of a questionnaire. The study investigated the perception of teachers regarding the implementation of the policy and the usage of English language in classroom teaching. The findings indicated that about 54% of Math and Science teachers preferred to continue with the implementation of the policy. However, further analysis indicated that 75% of the math novice teachers would like to continue with this policy as compared to 41.9 % and 52.4% of the experienced and very experienced respectively. This relationship was significant at the 0.05 level. The findings also exhibited that 70.3% of Science novice teachers also indicated a positive response whereas 61.7% of the experienced and 41.7 % of the very experienced teachers indicated otherwise. This relationship was also significant at the 0.05 level. These findings imply that the younger teachers are more open and have found it easier to adapt to the change in policy in comparison to the experienced and more experienced teachers. Findings also indicated that in total average, 29.5% of the Math teachers and 34.6% of Science teachers use English language more than 61% in their classroom teaching. This is indicative of the fact that a majority of the teachers are still unable to conduct their lessons using 100% English language.

“To Cheat or Not To Cheat, That is the Question”: Undergraduates’ Moral Reasoning and Academic Dishonesty

While academic qualifications are important in securing jobs, it is inarguable that ethics and integrity are also crucial in the workplace. These concerns are serious and disconcerting given the reports of rampant academic dishonesty within higher education institutions (HEIs). For graduates who think that cheating is acceptable, concepts like ‘morality’, ‘virtue’, and ‘truth’ are subsumed under the imperative of getting the grade. Studies show that there is a significant relationship between academic cheating and students’ potential unethical behavior in the workplace, which is a troubling indicator in terms of overall human resource and national development. This study addresses the issue of undergraduates’ moral reasoning by focusing on their perceptions’ of academic dishonesty and what drives them to cheat. This study employed a descriptive research design method using a self-report questionnaire to collect data from 288 (72 males and 216 females) randomly selected undergraduate students from different programs of study in a Malaysian HEI. The findings reveal that almost two-thirds (59.8 %) of the respondents felt that academic dishonesty is rampant. Interestingly though, while close to 90 % responded positively when asked “are you sure another student cheated during a quiz/exam?”, almost 80 % indicated they would not report such acts of dishonesty. Reasons for this phenomenon is a telling indicator of the undergraduates’ moral reasoning and it is one that HEIs should attempt to re-orientate by way of curricular and pedagogical strategies in order to advocate the culture of academic integrity and by default, professional ethics.

Factors Contributing to Students’ Poor Performance in a Mathematics Preparatory Program

The quality of instructional design in teaching and learning of mathematics has been one of the major challenges and concerns of educators in any higher educational settings. Recognizing the eloquence of the factors affecting math achievement is particularly important for making the best design decisions. This study, utilizing a mix-method approach among 370 randomly selected students (from which 18 were selected for the interviews), was conducted to identify the factors affecting the math achievement of students involved in a college preparatory diploma program where we seek to answer the fundamental question “Is this Mathematics program working?” First, the findings poignantly revealed that students faced great difficulty in the fundamentals of arithmetic and pre algebra. Secondly, majority of the students encountered difficulties in solving word problems as compared to numerical problems in the Mathematics Achievement test. Thirdly, attitude towards mathematics was not an indicator in the seminal determination of student’s achievement in mathematics. Finally, the usage and over reliance of calculators among the students plays a role in inhibiting their development of the fundamentals of mathematics learning. In general, the findings surmise that this Mathematics preparatory program specially tailored for students on their pursuit towards diploma courses “is not working” as one would hope so. These students have significant gaps in their mathematical knowledge and it will become incomprehensible for them to move forward. Our concern is that this will inevitably lead to lowering the standards of our graduates for them to be successful. We need to improve the current mathematics program design but one need to note that there are no quick fixes for it.

Error in Solving Mathematical Word Problem: A Study of Preparatory Diploma Program

Every year, thousands of SPM candidates graduate from secondary school and get ready to pursue their study in tertiary education. Students have choices to either study in Form six, A-level or foundation courses. One of foundation courses would be preparatory diploma program which offered by a local college. This study is to investigate the effectiveness of the preparatory diploma program and do students who enroll in this course do prepare themselves toward diploma program. Mathematics is the subject that has been chosen to be investigated. Total of 370 students from a local college were randomly selected to participate in this study. They were given a test where the test consists of word problems and non-word problems. The test covers most of the topics they had studied in secondary school and the preparatory diploma program. Later, eleven students were randomly selected to be interviewed after the test. In this study, researcher found that most of students cannot perform in the test as well in the interview. Errors made by students had been analyzed based on Fong schematic model where Fong classified errors into five categories, such as complete schema with errors, incomplete schema with no errors, and incomplete schema with errors, irrelevant solutions and blank solution.

Bootstrapping in educational studies

Most of the outcomes of real life events follow normal distribution. In educational research, researchers often ensure a distribution closely associated to the normal distribution in order to proceed on their analyses. Testing of the normality is normally done before any inferential analysis is carried out. However, assumptions about normality can be exempted if bootstrapped procedures are used. The computation in bootstrap is complicated. The advanced analysis through powerful computer facility enables the possible implementation of the computation. Hence, the application of computer contributes to the success of implementing bootstrap procedures. In this study, the focus is to estimate parameter and inference required about the mean of some observations. Generally, this study provides some guidelines in using bootstrap procedures in educational research. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to demonstrate the construction of the procedures of bootstrapping for the common usage in educational research in finding confidence intervals.