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CHALLENGES IN MATHEMATICS LEARNING: A STUDY FROM

SCHOOL STUDENTS' PER SPECTIVE

Mohd Rustam Mohd Rameli *1, Azlina Mohd Kosnin 2 ,

1,2Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, MALAYSIA.

*mohdrustam98@gmail.com, p-azlina@utm.my

ABSTRACT

Students' mathematics performance is one of the main concerns in mathematics education.

Nevertheless, many students perceive mathematics as one of the difficult core subjects to be learned.

This negative thinking can be due to many factors that hinder their mathematics learning. To get a

better picture of the hindering elements in students' learning, this study was therefore conducted to

explore the challenges, obstacles and difficulties experienced by students in the process of

mathematics learning. A qualitative research using case study design was employed. A total of 150

secondary school students comprise of form four and form two students were selected through

stratified random sampling technique to complete an open ended questionnaire. The respondents were

required to give their response on the challenges they encounter in learning mathematics. Content

analysis was carried out by identifying the themes as the major sources of challenges, obstacles and

difficulties. The frequency and percentage for each of the identified sources of challenges, obstacles

and difficulties were then calculated. Results indicated that the sources of challenges can be classified

into five main themes and thirteen sub themes: a) self-factors (negative perception, low self-

regulation), b) teachers (behaviors, practices, characteristics) c) parents (lack of cognitive, emotional

and financial support) d) friends (negative attitudes, behaviors, lack of support) and e) others factors

(nature of math and assessment pressure). The results of this study have great implications for

practitioners and also researchers in assisting students to deal with their challenges, obstacles and

difficulties in daily school life specifically in learning mathematics.

KEYWORDS: Challenges; Nature of math; Assessment pressure

INTRODUCTION:

Mathematics has always been given special attention in school as the nature of the subject is

related to many other fields and disciplines. Moreover, students' mathematics achievement has often

been the focus and is seen as a critical global issue in many countries. Besides being perceived as a

tough subject, problems in mathematics learning has also been related to the lack of regulation skills

among students in learning math. Self-regulation is a broad construct which covers before, during and

after phases learning. Self-regulation in learning is related to the 21th century of learning competency

(Wolters, 2010) thus students who are not regulated will face difficulty to overcome the obstructions

or challenges they face while learning.

The rapid changes of the education system and delivery method give a huge impact to students.

This situation requires students to learn effectively and in a more self-directed manner (Winters,

Greene & Costich, 2008). To achieve this, students need to be trained on how to enhance their skills

to choose the most appropriate learning strategy (Azevedo & Cornley, 2004). Failure of doing so will

affect students' motivation to learn and eventually might diminish their interest to learn. Motivation

is a very important element in the learning process as it is an inducer and propeller for one to do a

task successfully. Therefore, motivation is essential for an individual to successfully face challenges

in academic setting. Moreover, motivation will be used by students as the attribution or determinant

to their behavior in learning and performance. Behaviors that are related to academic motivation such

as the desire to do difficult tasks and stay longer in difficult situations will be the determinant for

students' ability in facing daily school life challenges (Masaali, 2007).

Based on the above mentioned statements, the current study was conducted to explore the

daily challenges faced by students in the process of learning mathematics. This challenges also can

be obstruction and difficulties experienced by students. This is significant due to the nature of

advancement of current mathematics education, delivery system and also the elements that have

potentials to hinder students' mathematics learning progress as discussed above.

METHODOLOGY:

This qualitative study employed case study design which explores the challenges in learning

mathematics among secondary school students. This study involved 80 Form 2 students (age=13 years

old) and 70 Form 4 students (age=16 years old) who were selected by using stratified random

sampling technique. The respondents were required to provide their response on the challenges they

faced in learning mathematics. In the context of this study, the challenges also refer to the obstacles

and difficulties they experienced in the daily mathematics learning process inside or outside the

classroom. The respondents were given 40 minutes to write down their answers to one general open-

ended question regarding the challenges they faced throughout their mathematics learning process.

Discussion was not allowed among students to ensure the independency of the students' response.

The responses were classified by using content analysis. The content analysis was first

conducted by generating initial code for all the responses. Then, potential themes and sub themes

were identified. Reviewing the themes and sub themes were then carried out to check whether they

align with the coded extracts. Lastly, the themes and sub themes were refined until specific and final

themes and sub themes were confirmed.

RESULTS:

After finalising the categorization, the results of content analysis indicated that the responses

could be classified into five main themes and thirteen sub themes: a) self-factors (negative perception,

low self-regulation), b) teachers (behaviors, practices, characteristics) c) parents (lack of cognitive,

emotional and financial support) d) friends (negative attitudes, behaviors, lack of support) and e)

others factors (nature of math and assessment pressure). The overall frequency and percentage for

each of the challenges were then calculated.

One of the themes identified was about self-factors as the source of challenges in learning

mathematics. There were 13 main categories of challenges mentioned by the students for this factor.

These categories could be classified into two sub themes which are negative perception (seven

categories) and low self-regulation (six categories) (Table 1). Negative perception is referred to

negative self-interpretation towards stimulus that related to mathematics based on students' prior

knowledge (e.g:"I really hate math since primary school"; "Disliking math is my inborn characteristic" ).

Meanwhile, self-regulation is referred as students' learning process that includes the thinking,

controlling, monitoring and evaluating elements (e.g:"I will easily feeling frustrated when no one can help me

when I failed to solve math problem")

Table 1. Descriptive analysis on the challenges experienced by the students for the themes related to

self-factors

1-Feeling sleepy while learning Math

2-Feeling bored while learning Math

3-No/lack of interest (nature)

4-Lack of focus (do something else when the teacher teaches in front of the class)

5-Lazy to do Math revision/task/exercise/seek help when facing difficulty

6-Perceived Math as too difficult

7-Perceived Math as confusing

1-Difficulty in doing Math exercise (without full help from others)

5-Always careless when doing Math exercises

6-Do not know/understand the way of answering question

Out of the 13 categories for the themes of self-factors, the most frequent category of challenges

stated was lazy to do math revision, tasks, exercises or seeking help when facing difficulty (f=56,

37%). No or lack of interest was also mentioned a lot by the students (f=48, 32%). Besides, the third

highest frequent category was students do not know or understand the way of answering certain math

questions (f=27, 18%).

Teacher was another sources of challenges stated by students. A total of 15 categories of

challenges related to teachers which were classified into three sub themes. Three categories falls into

teacher behaviors sub themes while ten and two categories were grouped into teacher teaching

practices and teacher characteristics sub themes respectively (Table 2). Teacher behaviors are the

behaviors that shown by teacher to the students including negative actions and negative talks (e.g:

"my math teacher always absent and not enter the class" ) while teacher teaching practices related to teacher's

regular behaviors during the teaching process that could affect students' learning (e.g: "math teacher

teach as fast as 800 km/hrs. My teacher is kind but bad tempered. She gives too much homework. Too much! It is NOT an

excuse but this is reality"; "when teacher gives difficult math homework, the teacher only allowed students to choose

three questions for him/her to answer or explain. THAT IS NOT FAIR"). Lastly, teacher characteristics are teacher

personality and physical appearance (e.g: "my math teacher always showed his fierce face to us and never make

a joke with us. Such a boring teacher")

Table 2. Descriptive analysis on the challenges experienced by the students for the themes related to

teacher

1-Scold their students when students failed in evaluation (test, exam)

2-Do not bother those who are not good in Math

3-Teachers do not enter the class

Teacher

Teaching

Practices

3-Teacher limits the number of questions that students can ask whenever

the students face difficulties in Math

4-Do not explain difficult questions

5-Teaching materials are not attractive

8-Teachers/school have high expectations on students (Grade A, uphold

teaches/school standard)

9-Students do not understand the technique of teaching

10-Fail to make students understand (do not give explanation; even when

teachers explain difficult solutions but they fail to notice that there are

students who still cannot understand)

1-Too serious while teaching and do not show any sense of humor (can)

2-Very fierce (always scold students)

The highest frequency among the 15 categories was about the burden felt by students by

having too many homework or mathematical tasks given by their teachers (f=72, 48%). The second

major categories experienced by the respondents was related to the pace of teachers' delivery. They

stated that their teacher taught very fast. As a consequence, they do not have ample time to copy all

the notes and also unable to digest the information given (f=60, 40%). Even worse, some students

complaint that their teachers failed to make them understand some lesson (f=54, 36%) due to the lack

of explanation given. In addition, even the teacher has explained the difficult question but they failed

to notice that there are students who still cannot understand it.

The next source of challenges is from parents or family. There were six categories mentioned

in the responses. Four categories were grouped into lack of cognitive support sub themes while the

other two categories were sub themed into lack of emotional support and lack of financial support

respectively (Table 3). Cognitive support is an assistance in the form of ability construction and self-

development (e.g: "my parents always wanted me to get straight A's. If I failed to do so, I will be scolded and caned";

"my parents push me to score at least grade B because they want to protect the family honor (as if)). Besides,

emotional support is an assistance in the form of feeling and affective (e.g: "my parents sometimes compare

my math performance with others. But when I ask the person whom my mother compared to, he replied by saying that "I

have to do so even I am not willing/sincere. It is just because to avoid from being scolded. I am scared because my father

is very fierce"; "my parents always ask me to do the best in math!! It makes me stressful. My family always ask me to

follow some idols and said this and that. However I feel weaker/less motivated when listening to the views"; "my parents

are not good in math. In my family only my brother is ok in math but it is not so good. It is like inherited. Hehe. My family

members also like to compare me with others. This will not boost my spirit but it just makes me feel so annoyed!! Oh my!!

Bye-Bye!"). Lastly, financial support includes the assistance in the form of materials and study sources

(e.g: " My parents not give me money to buy exercises books because they said it is enough for me to only do the exercises

in the text books and the exercises given by the teachers")

Table 3. Descriptive analysis on the challenges experienced by the students for the themes related to

parent/family

Lack of Cognitive

Support/Cognitive

Pressure

1-Not good/expert in Math (when cannot answer question, ask their

child to ask others siblings or ask their child to understand on their own)

2-Have a high expectation (Grade A, protect family honor; force their

child to understand/become expert in Math; scold their child when

failed in evaluation (test, exam))

3-Tend to compare their child Math ability with others

4-Force to do Math exercise

Lack of Emotional

Support/Emotional

Pressure

(child expression/feeling towards Math; perceived their child as not

giving attention during the Math class whenever their child cannot

answer Math exercises; pay more attention to the TV when their child

ask for a help

Lack of Financial

Support

1-Does not give their child money to buy reference book

The high expectation from the parents was the highest frequent category reported (f=81, 54%).

This implies that parents put too much emphasis on their children's performance in math. Other than

to much emphasis on math performance, lack of ability in mathematics and inadequacy to assist their

children in mathematics is another frequent category of challenge faced by students (f=37, 25%).

Moreover, another difficulty faced by the students was that their parents tend to compare their math

ability with others which would make them feel stressful (f=36, 24%).

Friends were also identified as the sources of challenges in students' learning mathematics

process. A total of 12 categories of challenges were mentioned by the students were related to friends.

These 12 categories were then classified into three sub themes which were negative attitude towards

math itself (three categories), negative behaviors or influences (seven categories) and also lack of

support (two categories) (Table 4). Negative attitude is referred as friends negative interpretation

towards stimulus related to mathematics based on their prior knowledge (e.g: "the problem is my friends

are also not good in math and dislikes math very much. Then cannot teach me when I have a math problem. Moreover, I

also dislike math and the devil always deceive me to copy my friends' answer" ). Meanwhile, negative behaviors

or influences are the behaviors showed by friends including negative actions and negative talks (e.g:

"my friends always make noise and do not focus in math class! They are always reprimanded by teachers. Some of them

are good but most of them are not. I hate my friend who sit beside me most because he often sings Korean song. That

makes me sleepy and I feel like asking him to move to Korea instead of sitting beside me"; "(my friends) always make

noise!! (I) cannot focus!!! I am always left behind!!! They act so childish. I just want to shut their mouth and give them a

punch. arghhhhhhhhh!! STRESS!!" ). Lastly, lack of support is related to friends behaviors that create

competitive situation in the aspects of self-ability and performance (e.g: "all my friends are good in math.

When they were asked a question, they can answer very fast. I feel challenged. When I feel challenged, I lost my mood to

study").

Table 4. Descriptive analysis on the challenges experienced by the students for the themes related to

friends

1-Being surrounded by friends who dislike/hate Math

2-Being surrounded by friends who feel Math is a boring subject

3-Being surrounded by friends who feel Math is a tough subject

Negative

Behaviors/

Influences

1-Being surrounded by friends who do not give attention in Math class

2-My friends are arrogant and do not want to share knowledge

3-Friends like to make noise (especially. male students, disturb when teacher

teaches/do the discussion)

4-Being teased by those who are good in Math

5-Complaint the ways of their Math teacher's teaching

6-Hold a negative perception towards those who are good in Math

7-Influence to not do Math exercises

1-Friends also sometime do not understand certain Math topics (they could not

explain Math lesson well)

2-Being surrounded by friends who are good in Math (competition pressure,

lose mood, doing fast in Math, becomes low self-esteem)

Most students had difficulty to focus in the math class because they were surrounded by

friends who liked to make noises and disturbed them during the learning process or discussion session

(f=63, 42%). Meanwhile, being surrounded by friends who are good in math (f=48, 32%) and also

who dislike math (f=42, 28%) were the second and third highest frequent challenge faced by students.

This implies that students who were motivated to learn math felt pressured when most of their friends

dislike or hate math. Meanwhile, those who had friends who are good in math felt the competitive

pressure as they do not want to be perceived as incompetent.

For the last sources of challenges (others factor), there were seven categories of challenges

stated by the students. These challenges includes the nature of math (five categories) and also the

assessment pressure (two categories) (Table 5). Nature of math includes the mathematics knowledge

and skills which referred to the information, concepts and skills that need to be acquired in order for

students to learn and solve mathematics problems (e.g: "too much math formula to be memorized and that

always makes me feel uneasy"). Besides, assessment pressure is the pressure felt by the students towards

the nature of evaluation regarding the needs to prepare themselves in anwering test or examination

questions (e.g: "the nature of math is strange. Too much nonsense topics. To the extent of my knowledge, the topics

like factor, prime factors, algebraic expression will not be used when working. When work in the shop, those will not be

used. The prime factors are all nonsense. But why it should be tested").

Table 5. Descriptive analysis on the challenges experienced by the students for the themes related to

other factors

1-Too many formulas to be memorized

2-Perceived Math as difficult (too much concepts)

3-Too many calculations/working steps/numbers

4-Too much high order thinking skill/challenging questions

5-Too many topics to be covered

1-Examination pressure (being scolded, find difficult, cannot achieve target,

worry if cannot answer Math exam well)

2-School based assessment pressure (dislike; cannot cope with new system PT3)

The results indicated that learning mathematics was perceived as difficult by students as too

many formulas need to be memorized (f=63, 42%) as well as too many concepts involved in order to

solve mathematical problem (f=54, 36%). What is more, there were 66 (44%) of the respondents

experienced examination pressure because they think that they need to apply a lot of knowledge and

skills learned to excel in the evaluation.

DISCUSSION:

Negative attitude towards mathematics seems to be a source of challenges in learning

mathematics. This finding is aligned with the study conducted by Gomez-Chacon (2000) which found

that the emergence of negative attitudes and behaviors towards mathematics are the factor that

contribute to the failure in mathematics. When students have negative perception towards

mathematics such as perceiving mathematics as being too difficult and very confusing to learn, they

will quickly loose their interests and motivation to learn the course. As a result, they cannot perform

well in solving mathematics problems. Additionally, low self-regulation skills in dealing with the

challenges mentioned by the students in this study is parallel with the findings of many researches

which reported that many students faced difficulties in regulating their learning (Perry, Phillips &

Dowler, 2004; Winne, 2005). In addition, regulating learning is higher order thinking skills which is

very important to be acquired during the transition from primary school to secondary school and high

school life (Annevirta & Vauras, 2006). Research indicates that students form negative perceptions

towards their ability in regulating their learning during the transition process (Corpus, McClintic-

Gilbert & Hayenga, 2009).

In the aspect of teacher, the main factors indicated by students as their challenges and

obstructions in learning mathematics are teacher behaviors, practices and characteristics. For

example, students feel worried when their teachers teach too fast and have unpleasant characteristics.

As a consequence, students are afraid to ask for assistance when they are experiencing problems to

understand certain lessons. The situation becomes worse when students cannot complete the

homework given by the teachers. Marzita (2000) stated that strict and decisive teachers in the context

of mathematics education in Malaysia will eventually trigger the feeling of restless in mathematics

among students.

The findings of this study also indicated that parents, family members, friends and teachers are

the social source of challenges in learning mathematics. Kober (1991) noted that those people have a

huge potential in affecting student's development, progress and performance. The importance of

mastering the knowledge and skills of mathematics such as the essential ability to apply Mathematics

knowledge in the real working environment (Siti Hamad & Rohani, 2010) often led parents to force

their children to master mathematics. There is no doubt that parents or teachers set certain

expectations on students' mathematics achievement with the aim to motivate and encourage students

to give their best efforts in the learning process. However, it should be noticed that too high

expectations will lead to fear and avoidance from mathematics which indicated that the expectation

contributes to negative self-esteem of students (Arem, 2003). This is parallel to the students' response

in the current study which mentioned that parents' tendency to compare their mathematics ability with

others just make them feel annoyed and lowered their self-confidence.

Being surrounded by peers who have negative attitudes (disliking mathematics) and behaviors

(noisy, unwilling to do mathematics exercise) towards mathematics are the common situations

experienced by students in their daily mathematics classroom. When this happens, students will feel

discouraged to stay with mathematical tasks or activities and less motivated to compete with others.

This phenomenon should be handled well by the students so that they are able to protect themselves

from being influenced by these negative influences. This is important because peer attitude is one of

the significant determinants of students' attitude towards mathematics (Arem, 2003). Positive

influence will lead to good consequences and vice versa.

In Malaysian education context, examination scores of Form Four and Form Five students are

still counted in the examination system to determine students' performance. In this system, the main

weightage is given to the evaluation marks while only small percentage of coursework marks are

accounted for certain subjects. Meanwhile, Form Three Assessment system (PT3) is implemented for

Form One until Form Three students. In this system, students' grades are determined by the band

which ranges from Band 1 (weakest) to Band 6 (greatest). However, there are many schools still using

continuous tests and assessment to evaluate their students' performance based on the marks they

scored. Moreover, students' academic achievement which is based on the examination marks or grades

are used as benchmarks for students' success. Therefore, it is always becomes the main aim for most

of the schools to target their students to achieve high scores in examination.

Besides that, among the 74 participating countries in the Program for International School

Assessment (PISA) in the year 2009, Malaysia was one of the countries ranked at the bottom for the

mathematics performance (PISA, 2009). The achieved score was lower than the set average score.

Moreover, there was not even one student achieved advance level (PISA, 2009). The aim of PISA is

to evaluate students' higher order thinking skills to solve problems of real life context. Therefore, the

results of this study which stated that student's experienced difficulties in learning mathematics thus

unable to solve challenging questions and cannot see the application of mathematics in daily life is

aligned with the PISA's achievement. Moreover, lack of skills in understanding mathematical

symbols, formulas, concepts and representations are also the challenges experienced by students in

mastering mathematics subject. This situation consequently leads students to experience anxiety (Ho

& Hyun, 2011).

CONCLUSION

Pressure seems to be the common challenge faced by the students in their daily learning process

for the mathematics subject. Specifically, the pressure may come from teacher, school or family

members who place very high expectations for students to excel in mathematics. Additionally,

competitive pressure from peers and friends also contributes to students' anxiety in learning

mathematics. Therefore, all parties including students need to have a good mechanism to control and

minimize the pressure. Too much emphasis on the importance of getting excellent results in

examination potentially makes the students to experience worry. However, it should be done to some

extent by using the fear appeal elements. The use of fear appeal elements on student evaluation is

believed can motivate the students to learn harder especially for less hardworking students. This can

be done when teachers or parents executing it together with the explanation on the significance of

evaluation for the students' future education and career prospect (Putwain & Roberts, (2009).

With regard to delivery, mathematics teachers should consider alternative methods of delivery

which can boost students' motivation to continue studying mathematics. Teachers need to make sure

that their students see the value of each mathematical task or activity assigned to them. When the

students appreciate the tasks, they will be more persistence and will be more willing to stay longer in

completing the mathematics activities (Martin, 2001) because they noticed the importance of

mathematics in their life.

In addition, this is also an effective way in answering questions from students regarding the

purpose of learning particular topics in mathematics which they feel are not useful for their future.

Meanwhile, parents should put more emphasis on encouraging and motivating their children rather

than setting very high expectations. Besides, teachers need to be aware of their students' individual

ability in learning mathematics. They must provide supportive learning environment to allow students

to learn comfortably. Finally, the students must be trained to develop a positive attitude and perception

towards mathematics. This is very important because their actions are influenced by their thinking. In

conclusion, all the challenges, obstacles and difficulties in learning mathematics should be addressed

properly so that students can endure in the daily mathematics learning progress.

Acknowledgement

This study was supported by a grant from Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FGRS), Malaysia

Ministry of Higher Education (Vot. No. R.J130000.7831.4F717). Opinions, findings and conclusions

or reccomendations expressed in the material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect

those of the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education.

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... Students self-factors which include negative perception and low self-regulation seems to be the sources of challenges to the students in learning Mathematics. Align with the previous study conducted on the local and international education context, perceiving Mathematics as too difficult and confusing subject are the two attributions to students failure in Mathematics (Gomez-Chacon, 2000;Mohd Rustam and Azlina, 2016). Emergence of negative perception will results the decreasing of interest to completing Mathematical tasks. ...

... Lack of regulation skills in the other hand will add the difficulties of students to master Mathematics literacy and skills. Many students could not manage or allocate time effectively to study Mathematics, get assistance when unable to solve Mathematics problem or could not keep focus on teacher's teaching (Mohd Rustam and Azlina, 2016;Perry, Philips and Dowler, 2004;Winne, 2005). Lack of regulation skills is said to be experienced by many students as it is a higher-order skills which need good cognitive planning and judgement (Zimmerman, 2002). ...

... Being teach by a decisive and boring teacher who like to scold, punish, applying dull teaching were also the common challenges for students in learning Mathematics. Students inability to master Mathematics literacy are also stem from the unpleasant teaching practices and behaviour that trigger students anxious, restless and the feeling of low self-confidence (Marzita, 2002, Mohd Rustam andAzlina, 2016). In the Malaysian education context, students' performance is still based on the examination score especially for Form Four and Form Five (Upper Secondary) students. ...

Transformation in Malaysian education system has brings about different reactions among teachers, students, parents and also stakeholders. Changes in the aims of Mathematics education provide various challenges to the students' learning as well as to the teachers' teaching practice. This study is therefore aims to evaluate the students' challenges in mastering Mathematics subject. This survey was conducted to 132 secondary school students in Malaysia. Self-developed questionnaire which consist of 42 items and comprises of five main sources of challenges (self, teachers, parents, friends, nature of Mathematics factor) was used as the instruments of this study. Hierarchical analysis which applied Rasch Measurement Model was applied to determine the order of difficulties experienced by students in learning Mathematics. Findings showed that within the five sources of challenges in learning Mathematics, nature of Mathematics rank first while parents factor rank last. Findings of this study regarding the various sources of challenges in Mathematics learning could serve as guidelines to the teachers and school administrators in dealing students' difficulties in learning Mathematics.

... However, Rameli et al. (2016) cited that one of the challenges of students in learning mathematics is low self-regulation wherein students have difficulty in doing math exercises and lack of motivation. ...

... Even worse, the students will eventually believe that he/she will not be able find the solution for the questions asked. Previous study has proved that having such bad perception in answering higher-order thinking skills questions correctly (Gomez-Chacon, 2000;Ho&Hyun, 2011;MohdRustam, 2016) will cause the shortcomings of students' performance in acquisition of higher-order thinking skills. ...

Kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengenalpasti tahap perlaksanaan, penguasaan, dan keberkesanan pendekatan pengajaran secara berkumpulan oleh Guru Pemulihan Khas dalam Program LINUS dari 40 buah sekolah kebangsaan di Johor. Seramai 40 orang responden yang terdiri daripada guru-guru pemulihan dari 40 buah sekolah kebangsaan di Johor telah dipilih secara kelompok atas kelompok. Soal selidik digunakan sebagai instrumen kajian yang telah diubahsuai daripada penyelidikpenyelidik lepas. Instrumen soal selidik ini digunakan untuk membuat kajian rintis bagi menguji kebolehpercayaan/analisis kesahihan. Darjah kebolehpercayaan (alfa cronbach) bagi instrumen yang digunakan dalam kajian ini ialah 0.707. Kajian ini dianalisis menggunakan Perisian Statistical Packages For the Social Science (SPSS) For Windows (Version 20.0) berbentuk statistik deskriptif iaitu peratusan, kekerapan dan min serta statistik inferensi iaitu Ujian t. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahawa tahap perlaksanaan, penguasaan, keberkesanan pengajaran secara berkumpulan oleh Guru Pemulihan Khas dalam Program LINUS berada pada tahap yang tinggi.

... The negative perceptions perceived by the students which related to the higher-order thinking skills questions are; the questions are difficult to be solved and they believe that they are unable to solve higher order thinking skills questions without trying. These results are aligned with the previous study which reported that holding bad perception in answering higher-order thinking skills questions correctly (Gomez-Chacon, 2000;Ho & Hyun, 2011;Mohd Rustam, 2016) will cause the declining of students' performance in acquisition of higher-order thinking skills. ...

The 21st century education which emphasize on higher-order thinking learning is one of the issue often discussed by the Ministry of Education and educators nowadays. The key to determine the success of the teaching higher-order thinking skills is seen through the acquisition gain by the students through their achievement. It is undeniable that teachers play an important role as facilitators to assist students' activities in the 21st century classroom. Moreover, studies revealed that teacher is one of the factors that influenced the success or failure of students' achievement. However, the challenges or factors that faced by students in learning higher-order thinking skills get less serious attention. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the challenges faced by the students in mastering higher-order thinking skills from students' perspectives. Quantitative study was employed throughout this study with 132 secondary school students as the respondents. The data were analyzed using Rasch measurement model. The findings show that the cognitive aspect is the main challenges faced by the students followed by the affective aspect in mastering higher-order thinking skills.

The emphasizing of higher-order thinking skills in Mathematics was given attention whereby the students need to master the higher-order thinking skills to become a creative and critical thinker. However, students'achievement in Mathematics assessment was still on average.Therefore, the purpose of this study is to access the hindering factors in mastering the higher-order thinking skills in Mathematics among students. This study employed questionnaire that involved 132 students as the respondents. All the respondents were asked to give their response towards the hindering factors in mastering higher-order thinking skills in Mathematics subjects. All the data were analysed by using Rasch Measurement Model. The result showed that student factor was the main hindering factors as compared to the teacher's factors in mastering higher-order thinking skills. Specifically, the student factors were not only because of their low interest and lack of motivation, but it was also caused from their negative perception towards Mathematics and lack of Mathematics basic knowledge. Based on the result, this study could serve as the guideline for the teachers in planning some intervention to help the students in mastering the higher-order thinking skills.

... Poor reading skills and a poor ability to understand the higher-order thinking skills problems will eventually develop a negative attitude or perception among students. The students tend to perceive all the higher-order thinking skills questions as being difficult and feel it is impossible for them to get the correct solutions (Gomez-Chacon, 2000;Ho and Hyun, 2011;Mohd Rustam, 2016). The negative attitude will lead to the students' poor performance in answering the higher-order thinking skills questions. ...

Despite the challenges in delivering the content of the mathematics syllabus, teachers nowadays are also facing difficulties in catering for a wide range of students' abilities. Each student has the ability to learn mathematics at a different rate. However, students' potential for learning mathematics can be lost if it is not discovered and supported at the appropriate time (Borovik and Gardiner, 2006). Throughout the transformation of education in Malaysia, which emphasizes higher-order thinking skills among students, students' performance in mathematics has persistently been poor. Therefore, this study will highlight the challenges mathematics teachers face in inculcating higher-order thinking skills among students. This study was conducted with 160 mathematics teachers who were selected from secondary schools in Johor state. All the respondents were asked to give their response to the open ended questions regarding the difficulties they faced in teaching higher-order thinking skills. All the collected data were analysed by thematic analysis. The result showed that three main factors (teachers, students, and others) contribute to the challenges mathematics teachers face in inculcating higher order thinking skills. Based on the result, this study could serve as a guideline to provide intervention in addressing the corresponding challenges faced by mathematics teachers in inculcating higher-order thinking skills among students

Purpose-The national mathematics curriculum of Pakistan has emphasized on improving content knowledge, reasoning abilities and problem-solving skills of students about thinking, communicating and solving mathematics (national mathematics curriculum of Pakistan, 2006). Whereas, there is a need to understand the point of view of teachers about the challenges they face in achieving the goals of national mathematics curriculum. This will help leading teacher training institutions to revisit their math teacher continuous professional development (CPD) programs and facilitate school leadership in improving the quality of math education in rural schools of the province. However, the purpose of this research study is to figure out the challenges that teachers are facing while achieving the goals of the national curriculum by teaching mathematics at the primary level in educational institutes of Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach-In this research study qualitative research approaches have been utilized, in which focus group discussions (FGDs) were used as data collection techniques. Furthermore, thematic analysis of the data led toward the development of four overarching themes such as teachers' knowledge about mathematics curriculum, challenges relating to mathematics content and pedagogy, difficulties in developing conceptual understanding and designing lesson plans to address students' diversity. Findings-The overall findings of this research study suggested that the majority of teachers are facing difficulties in mathematics content teaching such as decimal fraction, unitary method, measurement principles, practical geometry and data handling. Moreover, teachers are also facing challenges and difficulties in developing hands-on and minds-on activities in the teaching of mathematical concepts to the students of primary level in educational institutes of Pakistan. Practical implications-This research study will facilitate the teachers and stakeholders to address the problematic issues in the domain of content delivery of mathematics. Whereas, this study recommends educating teachers about national mathematics curriculum and to develop a CPD framework for mathematics teachers for the enhancement of their pedagogical content knowledge. The study also recommends orientating school heads about the different aspects of math curriculum so that they can mentor math teachers in achieving math curriculum goals. Originality/value-This is the first research study of its nature, which targets and highlights the teacher's perceptions toward the achieving the goals of national mathematics curriculum of Pakistan and addressing the pedagogical challenges faced in mathematics teachers. There is a dearth of studies in mathematics education in Sindh province. The issue is of immense importance, the findings will help teachers to improve mathematics instructions at primary level.

Gamification is a term used to convey a gaming-based approach in a non-gaming environment. One such application is in the emergence of gamification in educational sector. Additional mathematics is a compulsory subject that is offered to science stream students across Malaysia. However, most students have problem understanding and learning the subject as the traditional educational approach is less adequate due to its ineffectiveness in increasing students' performance. To identify the root cause, a descriptive research method using survey among students is conducted. It is found that moderate number of students (n=118) have problems with additional mathematics with 3.02 as the average mean value of respondents in close-ended questionnaire conducted. The survey also yields difficulty applying concepts and tedious calculation steps as problems in the open-ended questionnaire response from students. The study also proposes a design of a game kit to aid in creating an enthusiastic and interactive learning in additional mathematics classroom. Implications of the study include that students are expected to have increased understanding as well as more interest in learning additional mathematics.

Andrew J Martin

This paper assesses the psychometric properties of the Student Motivation Scale, an instrument measuring school students' motivation. Motivation is assessed through nine measures, separated into what are referred to as boosters and guzzlers. Boosters are constructs that reflect adaptive motivation and guzzlers are constructs that reflect less adaptive motivation. Boosters are subsumed by thoughts (self-belief, learning focus, value of schooling) and behaviours (persistence and planning and monitoring). Guzzlers are subsumed by thoughts or feelings (low control and anxiety) and behaviours (avoidance and self-sabotage). Data show that the Student Motivation Scale has a clear factor structure reflecting the hypothesised five boosters and four guzzlers, is reliable, and correlated with achievement. Gender and year level differences also emerge: girls are significantly more learning focused and engage in more planning and monitoring than boys; girls are significantly more anxious than boys; Year 9 students are significantly lower than Year 10 and Year 11 students in learning focus, significantly higher than Year 11 students in avoidance, and significantly higher than Year 10 and Year 11 students in self-sabotage. Strategies for intervention are discussed in the context of these findings and the issue of academic resilience is introduced as an additional aspect of motivation that the Student Motivation Scale is able to assess.

The authors investigated the development of metacognitive skill (MS) of 43 children from preschool to the 2nd grade (6-8 years of age) in a problem-solving situation. The children's skill to direct, guide, and monitor their performance in a play-like problem-solving context was evaluated in 3 experimental groups of preschool children with high, average, or low metacognitive knowledge (MK). The development of MS was further compared with the development of general MK of the same children. The results showed that children with initially high MK had better MS in problem-solving tasks during the 1st 2 school years, whereas the self-guided behavior of children with lower MK resembled more the type of adult-dependent behavior typical of young children as late as the 2nd grade. However, there was no clear developmental relationship between MK and MS. A number of cases from the data are described to illustrate individual differences.

Ho Kyoung Ko
Hyunsook Yi

This study developed and validated a Mathematics Anxiety Scale for Students (MASS) that can be used to measure the level of mathematics anxiety that students experience in school settings and help them overcome anxiety and perform better in mathematics achievement. We conducted a series of preliminary analyses and panel reviews to evaluate quality of items initially developed for the MASS. The 65 items that measure four domains of mathematics anxiety (nature of mathematics, learning strategy, test/performance, and environment) were finally selected to constitute the final version of the MASS and were administered to a nationally representative sample of 2,339 Korean middle school and high school students to validate the scale. Psychometric properties including descriptive statistics, reliability measures, factorial structure, and correlations with external criteria were examined to provide validity evidences of the final scale. This study contains a detailed description of the entire process of developing and validating the MASS, including the item-selection procedures and psychometric properties of the scale. We believe that the MASS, developed in this study, provides basic but very essential information for predicting specific factors that can cause such anxiety among students.

The term "self-regulated" is used to describe learners who have highly effective learning and work habits. They are successful in and beyond school. This investigation examines whether and how teachers, who are masters at supporting young students' development of self-regulated learning (SRL), can mentor student teachers to design tasks and develop practices that promote elementary school students' SRL. Nineteen student teachers were paired with 19 mentor teachers in a cohort that emphasized SRL theory and practice. In general, student teachers remained with the same mentors throughout their teacher education program and were supported by faculty associates and researchers who also had expertise in promoting SRL. Researchers observed mentor and student teachers teaching, videotaped professional seminars, and collected samples of student teachers' reflections, lesson plans and unit plans. Data indicate some student teachers designed tasks and implemented practices that promote SRL and that mentors' practices accounted for 20% of the variance observed in the student teachers' practices. Finally, the complexity of the tasks that mentors and student teachers designed was strongly predictive of opportunities for students to develop and engage in SRL.

The authors examined the effectiveness of self-regulated learning (SRL) training in facilitating college students' learning with hypermedia. Undergraduate students (N = 131) were randomly assigned to either a training condition or a control condition and used a hypermedia environment to learn about the circulatory system. Students in the SRL group were given a 30-min training session on the use of specific, empirically based SRL variables designed to foster their conceptual understanding; control students received no training. Pretest, posttest, and verbal protocol data were collected from both groups. The SRL condition facilitated the shift in learners' mental models significantly more than did the control condition; verbal protocol data indicated that this was associated with the use of the SRL variables taught during training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Fielding I. Winters
Jeffrey Alan Greene
Claudine M. Costich

Computer-based learning environments (CBLEs) present important opportunities for fostering learning; however, studies have shown that students have difficulty when learning with these environments. Research has identified that students' self-regulatory learning (SRL) processes may mediate the hypothesized positive relations between CBLEs and academic performance. In this review, we identified 33 empirical studies of SRL and CBLEs. We address three research questions: (1) How do learner and task characteristics relate to students' SRL with CBLEs? (2) Can various learning supports or conditions enhance the quality of students' SRL as they learn with CBLEs? (3) What conceptual, theoretical, and methodological issues exist for this growing area of research? We found evidence that specific SRL processes are more often associated with academic success than others and that SRL skills can be supported. We also identified a number of issues that researchers should aim to address in future investigations, including a more comprehensive measurement of facets of SRL and the quality of SRL processes, the seeming disconnect between SRL processes and learning outcomes, and the distinction between self- and other-regulation.

Jennifer Henderlong Corpus
Megan S. McClintic-Gilbert
Amynta Hayenga

The present study was designed to investigate the nature, timing, and correlates of motivational change among a large sample (N = 1051) of third- through eighth-grade students. Analyses of within-year changes in students' motivational orientations revealed that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations decreased from fall to spring, with declines in intrinsic motivation especially pronounced for the adolescents and declines in extrinsic motivation especially pronounced for the elementary students. These changes in motivation were explained, in part, by shifts in students' perceptions of the school goal context. Findings suggested that typical age-related declines in intrinsic motivation may be minimized by a school-wide focus on mastery goals. Finally, the potential academic consequences of students' motivational orientations were examined with a series of hierarchical multiple regressions. Intrinsic motivation and classroom achievement appeared to influence one another in a positive and reciprocal fashion. Poor classroom performance minimally predicted higher levels of extrinsic motivation, but extrinsic motivation was not a source of low classroom grades.