Factors Influencing Values of Mathematics Among Mathematics Students in Tertiary Level
Mohd Rijal Ilias1*, Adibah Nur Mohamad Basir2
1 School of Mathematical Sciences, College of Computing, Informatics and Media, Universiti Teknologi MARA,40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, MALAYSIA
2 Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Selangor, Kampus Puncak Alam, 42300 Bandar Puncak Alam, Selangor, MALAYSIA
*Corresponding Author: [email protected] Accepted: 15 December 2022 | Published: 31 December 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.55057/ajress.2022.4.4.7
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Abstract: The purpose of this study is to determine the factors which influence students’ values of mathematics during learning process for Mathematics subjects. Questionnaires were distributed to Education Mathematics’ students. Total respondents are 60 students. Dependent variable is values of mathematics and three independent variables are students’ attitudes toward mathematics, teacher presentation of content and interest in mathematics. Data was analysed by using SPSS statistical tool. ANOVA test used to determine significant factors towards values in mathematics and path analysis testing the established hypotheses. The result indicated that two out of three factors shows a significant factor. It means that attitudes toward mathematics and teacher presentation of content plays an important role to develop students’
value in mathematics not only today but for long life learning.
Keywords: Value in Mathematics, Students’ Attitude, Teacher Presentation, Students’ Interest _________________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
Mathematics is important in our life especially when people have to use calculation in daily life spending. It is starting in our childhood education in applying mathematics until higher education. Students' attitude in learning and studying relates to values that students need to prepare first before learning some new knowledge. Attitudes, beliefs, and motivation are linked to each other that will make a good achievement in education. While, if students perceive a subject such as mathematics as boring, problematics, hard and impractical, their result in an examination on that subject will be negative and low in achievement (Mutohir et al., 2018).
Awang et al. (2013) studied the student’s attitude toward Calculus subject in tertiary level. They found that, students’ attitude plays an important role to success in Calculus subject.
The teacher's presentation of content will identify the relationship with the values of mathematics too. Mathematics teachers need to be more active and make the class enjoyable in learning mathematics because some of the students have anxiety in mathematics especially when there is a surprise quiz and exam. They are afraid that they will not be able to perform well in mathematics. Mathematics teachers need to give students opportunities to explain their ideas on solving the mathematics problem because mathematics working solutions are not rigid to one solution only.
Interest is a main psychological in our mind that can control everything that happens in our life. If students enjoy mathematics class, they will be comfortable in learning mathematics, and they can answer any question without any anxiety or fear. When students apply values in any subject that they learn, the subject will be easy to understand and learn because values will determine the students’ interest in a subject such as mathematics that they find hard to understand. Values of mathematics that students need to apply are confidence, interest, and improvement.
Poor performance in mathematics makes everything did not well because mathematics is related to our daily life especially when it involves finances. On top of that, mathematics is common knowledge that basic thing that they need to watch if they take engineering, technical, musical education, and social sciences (Jameel et al., 2016). All those problem statements are a major problem in most of the students that have low esteem in mathematics to perform well in their minimum required when they want to continue their study. Mathematics act as an instrument to understand many subjects such as chemistry and physics that will be multiplying in education. Along the introduction above, this study aimed to gain a deeper understanding of value in Mathematics.
1.1 Research Objective The research objectives are:
a) To identify the relationship between students’ attitudes toward mathematics and values of mathematics.
b) To identify the relationship between teacher presentation of content and values of mathematics.
c) To identify the relationship between interest in mathematics and values of mathematics.
d) To investigate which factor that influence values of mathematics.
1.2 Research Question
Based on the research objectives, there are research questions that need to fulfil by participants.
The research questions that arise in this study are:
a) Is there any relationship between students’ attitudes toward mathematics and the values of mathematics?
b) Is there any relationship between teacher presentation of content and values of mathematics?
c) Is there any relationship between interest in mathematics and values of mathematics?
d) What is the most factors that influence values of mathematics?
2. Literature Review
Mathematics achievement in Malaysia is quite low according to statistical in 2018 from Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) ranking by country is 48 out of 79 countries that joined this program under mathematics. Malaysia is too far behind neighbouring countries such as Singapore which achieved number two in PISA and number 1 under Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). PISA is a worldwide study by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which study from 15 years old students who performed in mathematics, science, and reading. Besides, Malaysia is rank in 29 places out of 39 countries in TIMSS in 2019 (Phang et al., 2020).
From these statistics, we realize that Malaysia needs to improvise students' and teachers’ skills to rise again in mathematics achievements. Besides, some arises factors discovered by researchers in Malaysia that are based on students’ achievements. The main factor that influences students’ achievement in Malaysia is students’ attitude towards mathematics. Most of the students did not like mathematics and felt mathematics is a strain subject in school. Their mindset affects their attitude in mathematics which they blocked their cognitive to adapt to mathematics. Their mind will go blank when they want to think about the solution in mathematics questions especially in the examination. Their anxiety is quite high when they are thinking about the upcoming examination too. They feel insecure and frustration when they received their examination results in mathematics (Enu et al., 2015).
2.1 Students’ Attitude towards Mathematics
Attitude is linked with positive will be positive in any outcome. While students’ attitude towards mathematics will involve their efforts to understand and practice mathematics from basic education to higher education (Enu et al., 2015). Students believe that their emotional state will influence when they learn or take mathematics examinations. For example, if students’ attitude is positive towards a subject, the result of the subject will be positive and successful. Ma and Kishor (1997) mentioned students who succeed in mathematics have a positive attitude towards mathematics rather than students that have a negative attitude toward mathematics. A research study state that students who like mathematics, tend to have good marks in mathematics examination (Khine et al., 2015). Attitude is related to belief and motivation. Thus, when students like to learn and do exercises in mathematics will be a tendency to get a higher mark in mathematics that will be their motivation and belief in mathematics. A positive attitude in mathematics will lead students to be high achievement especially among female students (Ajisuksmo & Saputri, 2017).
Demirel et al. (2015) stated students’ attitudes with reflective thinking skills are no significant difference between gender. The researchers carried out a study that used Mathematics Attitude Scale which contains 22 instruments which the participants got the highest score from the scale is 66 and the least is 22. Thus, there was a significant difference between male students in terms of students’ attitudes towards mathematics. Moreover, students’ attitudes towards mathematics was a significant difference in which male students score higher than female students (Sonnert et al., 2015). The potential influence was by students’ background that makes the most impact on the students’ attitude towards mathematics. Ilias and Azman (2022) found that students’
attitude can contribute to the Mathematics result of the students. Furthermore, students realize that mathematics will determine their career choices in the future especially if there is a minimum requirement that involves mathematics result.
2.2 Teacher presentation of content
Presentation of content is crucial in education especially in mathematics learning which involves mathematics formulas and equations. If the students are poor in basic mathematics, it will impact the upcoming mathematics learning. Mathematics teachers need to play their role in attracting students’ attention and interest in learning mathematics. Teachers’ role in teaching mathematics is clarity in explaining all the solutions in the questions and giving extra examples for students to understand the concepts. Teachers also have to be patient with students’ level of knowledge give extra time in learning and answering mathematics and respect ideas and suggestions that students try to deliver to the class. Teachers need to form groups for students.
They are scared if they have to learn mathematics alone because they feel of failure when receiving mathematics questions. When they learn in a group, teachers apply 21st-century
learning which is cooperative learning which they can help low cognitive students to solve any mathematics questions (Mutohir et al., 2018).
Teachers’ quality and performance also affect students’ motivation and interest in learning mathematics. Students believe if they got a good teacher, they would get a good performance in mathematics because the good teacher will take care of their students. Besides, the pre- service teacher needs to get intensive training in professional development thus creating a good environment in the classroom in which they need to handle the students’ behaviour. Teachers’
methods of teaching or pedagogy need to improve. Teachers are still stuck with traditional teaching which teachers only deliver knowledge to the students and students receive all the information which is known as teacher-centered (Estonanto & Dio, 2019). A teaching method that has been used by all teachers is “one size fits all” needs to avoid because students have many levels of knowledge in learning something (Venkat & Spaull, 2015). Nowadays, teachers start using the lecturer method of instruction which uses the questioning and answering method in a small group which will generate students’ cognitive and communication among themselves (Enu et al., 2015). Teachers’ skills in delivering the content of mathematics need to be crystal and clear to avoid misunderstood among the students when they do revision or assignments (Sonnert et al., 2015). Teachers' experiences and preparation on learning mathematics have positive significant on mathematics attitude.
2.3 Interest towards Mathematics
Interest defines as somebody’s passion and spirit that an individual desires and essential requirement towards something. Interest also acts as a foundation when we need to learn something new. Interest did not come eventually on the spot, but it will turn someone’s habits to become special to them. Thus, it will spark someone's curiosity and it will be a hobby if they like to do the thing. Students’ interest is the factor encouraging their achievement (Azmidar et al., 2017) towards mathematics related to self-confidence and ability to learn mathematics.
Students will show their interest when learning mathematics by doing mathematics homework or attending additional mathematics classes after school time (Mutohir et al., 2018). It will be increasing someone’s motivation when they have an interest in what they love to do.
Interest is also divided into two parts which are situational interest and personal interest.
Situational interest is created by several conditions or any physical objects in the atmosphere.
While personal interest will form when someone focuses to do the activities in the long term.
In mathematics learning, when someone has a high interest in mathematics, they will lengthen their attentions to the learning with a lot of tasks such as assignments and mathematics examinations. Then, they will be creating a lot of curiosity towards mathematics and participate actively if they feel interested in it (Azmidar et al., 2017). The higher the interest toward mathematics, the higher their motivation and attitude towards mathematics too. The teachers’
content on mathematics will be a lot easier when they spark their interest in mathematics.
Research by Prabowo (2016) based on a game tournament in mathematics stimulus students’
interest in mathematics. They are a few cycles in the game tournament, which is at the beginning of the tournament, the students did not like mathematics but when they level up in the game, they found out they love mathematics, and they focus on winning their games. The researcher uses cooperative learning in the game learning since they will communicate with their teammates how to do the solution in mathematics. They might bore with the traditional method in learning mathematics and found out the traditional method is not interactive compared to game learning.
2.4 Conceptual Framework
Figure 1 of the conceptual framework in this research study. The perceptions of mathematics learning towards improving the value of mathematics among mathematics education students.
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework
The summary of the hypothesis statement as follows:
H1: There is a relationship between students’ attitudes toward mathematics and the values of mathematics.
H2: There is a relationship between teacher presentation of content and values of mathematics.
H3: There is a relationship between interest in mathematics and values of mathematics.
3. Methodology
This study was conducted through a questionnaire method to study the factors that affect the value of Mathematics among students. The study utilized descriptive, correlation and regression analyze to answer the research objectives and to test the research hypothesis by using Google Form for data collection and data analysis from the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).
3.1 Research Design
This research study will engage quantitative research design. The researcher conducts descriptive research for this study. The first section of this survey is consisting of the demography of the students such as gender, age, Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) in the current semester, results in calculus 1. The second section is students’ attitude towards mathematics which contains 11 questions. The third section is the teacher presentation of content which contains nine questions. Forth section is about interest in mathematics which consists of seven questions on the Likert scale and the last section consists of the values of mathematics which consists of six questions. This questionnaire is made of the Likert Scale which has five scales from strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), neutral (3), agree (4), and strongly agree (5).
3.2 Sampling
The population is a set of people that need to filter to the participant any research problems.
The population of this study is consisting of bachelor’s in education science (Hons.) Mathematics students in faculty of education. This research will perform simple random
Students’ attitude toward mathematics
Teacher presentation of content
Interest toward mathematics
Values of mathematics
H2
sampling. Based on sample size formulas by Kregie and Morgan (1970), this study needs to use 60 respondents from mathematics education students from the faculty of education to participate in this quantitative research. The procedures of this random sampling are this study will be gathering about 60 students from mathematics education students to assign a survey questionnaire and a set of test papers. The survey is containing five sections of quantitative research.
3.3 Instrument
The instrument used in this is questionnaires. This questionnaire consists of five sections. The first section is demography data. Thus, the second section for this phase is students’ attitude towards mathematics which consists of eleven (11) items on the Likert scale. The third section for this phase is the teacher presentation of content that consists of nine (9) items on the Likert scale. The fourth section for this phase is interest toward mathematics that consists of seven (7) items on the Likert scale. The fifth section for this phase is the values of mathematics that consist of six (6) items in the Likert scale as a dependent variable. The Likert scale is contained five scales which are Strongly Disagree (SD), Disagree (D), Neutral (N), Agree (A), Strongly Agree (SA), Respondents need to tick (✓) one scale that presents how they feel about the statements. These items in the questionnaire were adopted from two journals. The first independent variable is Students’ attitude towards mathematics adopted from a journal-title Factors Influencing Students’ Mathematics Performance in Some Selected Colleges of Education in Ghana by Enu et al. (2015).
3.4 Reliability Test
This study is utilized Cronbach alpha to investigate the internal consistency of the questionnaires collected from the respondents. All variables of the study gained high inside reliability as shown in below Table 1. This test will allow this study to make further analysis and discussion.
Table 1: Reliability Test
Variables No of
Items
Cronbach’s Alpha
Cronbach’s Alpha Item Deleted
Students’ attitude toward mathematics 11 0.910 0
Teacher presentation of content 9 0.855 0
Interest toward mathematics 7 0.873 0
Value of mathematics 6 0.837 0
Table 1 provide an overview of Cronbach alpha of three variable. According to the result from table, it reflected that all variable is considered as reliable in group of very good which the value ranges from 0.8 to 0.9. It shows students’ attitude toward mathematics with 0.910, followed by interest toward mathematics with 0.873, teacher presentation of content with 0.855 and value of mathematics with 0.837.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1 Demographic
Table 2 shows the summary of a questionnaire that is being distributed and returned by the respondent through Google Form. There are 60 sets of questionnaires were distributed to the respondents by mathematics education students the questions in the questionnaire were suitable for conducting this research study. Based on the Table 3, it shows most of the respondents are female
students which is 80% (n=48) respondents compare to male students which are 20% (n=12) respondents.
Table 2: Summary of the questionnaire that is distributed
Number of Questionnaires Distributed
Number of Questionnaire Return
Percent Valid Questionnaire
60 60 100%
Table 3: Respondent’s gender
Gender Frequency Percent
Male 12 20
Female 48 80
Total 60 100
4.2 Descriptive Statistics
In terms of descriptive statistics, the result shows that students’ attitude toward mathematics is important factor in influencing their value of mathematics where the result shows the students’
attitude toward mathematics got highest mean (mean=4.35). It is followed by Teacher presentation of content (mean=4.34), value of mathematics (mean=3.52) and interest toward mathematics (mean=2.26) used during teaching and learning processes. Table 4 below shows the result of mean for each group variables.
Table 4: Mean for each group variables
Variables Mean Standard
Deviation
Total Respondents
Students’ attitude toward mathematics 4.35 0.61 60
Teacher presentation of content 4.34 0.49 60
Interest toward mathematics 2.26 0.90 60
Value of mathematics 3.52 0.82 60
4.3 Correlation Analysis
Based on Table 5 below, all variables have significant correlation and can be classified as follow:
• Students’ attitude towards mathematics and values of mathematics has a strong positive correlation.
• Teacher presentation of content and values of mathematics has a moderate positive correlation.
• Interest towards mathematics and values of mathematics has a moderate positive correlation.
Table 5: Correlations’ result
Value of mathematics
Students’
attitude toward mathematics
Teacher presentation
of content
Interest toward mathematics
Value of mathematics
Pearson
Correlation 1 0.733** 0.640** 0.526**
Sig. (2-
tailed) 0.000 0.000 0.000
N 60 60 60 60 Students’
attitude toward mathematics
Pearson
Correlation 0.733** 1 0.543** 0.665**
Sig. (2-
tailed) 0.000 0.000 0.000
N 60 60 60 60
Teacher presentation
of content
Pearson
Correlation 0.640** 0.543** 1 0.522**
Sig. (2-
tailed) 0.000 0.000 0.000
N 60 60 60 60
Interest toward mathematics
Pearson
Correlation 0.526** 0.665** 0.522** 1
Sig. (2-
tailed) 0.000 0.000 0.000
N 60 60 60 60
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) 4.4 Analysis of Variance
Table 6 shows R2 value indicates that 62.1% of the variance in the outcome of value of mathematics able to predict from the variables of students’ attitude toward mathematics, teacher presentation of content, and interest towards mathematics. Then, another 37.9% of the value of mathematics cannot be explained by the research model but explained by other variables which are not included in this research.
Table 6: Model Summary
Model R R Squared Adjusted R Square
1 0.788 0.621 0.600
Furthermore, Table 7 shown F-test value is 30.541 at significant level. Based on result, regression model was fit and the independent variables are useful in explaining the variance of the dependent variable.
Table 7: ANOVAa
Model Sum of squares
df Mean Square F Sig.
1 Regression Residual
Total
12.753 7.795 20.548
4.251 0.139
30.541 .000b
a. Dependent Variable: Value of mathematics
b. Predictors: (Constant), Students’ attitude toward mathematics, Teacher presentation of content, Interest toward mathematics
Based on Table 8, the coefficient for students’ attitude toward mathematics is 0.542. thus, for every unit increase in students’ attitude toward mathematics, it is expected that 0.542-point increase in the value of mathematics. Students’ attitude toward mathematics is statistically
significant for the values of mathematics, p=0.000. The coefficient for teacher presentation of content is 0.424. thus, for every unit increase in teacher presentation of content, it is expected that 0.424-point increase in the value of mathematics. Teacher presentation of content is statistically significant for the values of mathematics, p=0.001. It shows the most factor that influences the values of mathematics is students’ attitude towards mathematics since the significance is less than 0.05 and the unstandardized coefficient is higher than teacher presentation of content.
The crucial function of regression analysis is to determine whether the research hypotheses are failed to reject or reject. It is defined as a model that gives a straight-line relationship between two or more independent variables and a dependent variable. The table 8 shows that three variables were clarified through regression analysis which used multiple linear regression.
From the table, the highest beta is students’ attitude toward mathematics, which is 0.542, followed by teacher presentation of content which is 0.424, and lastly is the interest toward mathematics which is -0.021. Thus, the lowest beta indicates the lowest important factors between the other independent variables and dependent variables. The significant column shows that there are two independent variables which are students’ attitude toward mathematics and teacher presentation of content that is significant because both have less than 0.05.
Therefore, an independent variable that is interest toward mathematics shows that there is no relationship with the dependent variable.
The regression equation is written as value of mathematics predicted=0.204 + 0.542 (students’
attitude toward mathematics) + 0.424 (teacher presentation of content) - 0.021 (interest towards mathematics).
Table 8: Coefficientsa
Model Unstandardized Coefficients
Standardized
Coefficients t-value Sig.
B Std. Error
(Constant) 0.204 0.467 0.438 0.663
Students’ attitude toward mathematics
0.542 0.112 0.563 4.859 0.000
Teacher presentation of
content
0.424 0.122 0.351 3.463 0.001
Interest toward
mathematics -0.021 0.075 -0.032 -0.280 0.781
a. Dependent Variable: Value of mathematics
5. Conclusion
Based on the findings, the researcher was able to conclude the result as follows:
HYPOTHESES ACCEPTED/REJECTED
H1: There is a relationship between students’ attitudes toward mathematics and the values of mathematics.
ACCEPTED H2: There is a relationship between teacher presentation
of content and values of mathematics.
ACCEPTED
H3: There is a relationship between interest in mathematics and values of mathematics.
REJECTED
The most factor that influences the value of mathematics according to the independent variables is students’ attitude towards mathematics. A previous study mentioned that students’ attitude defines everything and result in their academic achievement. The students that liking mathematics has a positive relationship with mathematics achievement thus they have a positive attitude when learning mathematics. their perception towards mathematics is also able to affect values of mathematics which if they are positive in the perception, they will have a positive relationship with mathematics learning. The students’ confidence will boost when learning mathematics thus they will get a positive result in mathematics examination. A positive attitude towards mathematics will enjoy the mathematics learning and students will get satisfaction from the mathematical knowledge if they behave well in the mathematics class such as a focus on the mathematics session.
A study by Mutohir et al. (2018) stated that teacher presentation of content is statistically different in the value of mathematics which both of the variables are correlated. The respondents believed that mathematics teachers’ method of teaching will affect their values towards mathematics.
The students’ interest in mathematics always will be related to the pedagogical of the mathematics content. Some students were able to learn in the traditional method while some of them want something new in learning mathematics. The mathematics teachers can variety mathematics content by using a variety of mathematical models or materials. Students love when they get involved actively in mathematics learning which they can feel the enjoyment in the activities.
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thanks a group of students from UiTM Puncak Alam who have collaborated and/or anyone who has helped with the study.
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