Incorporating Teaching Strategies Essential to Students' Performance in Mathematics

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

In today's high-tech world, it is very important for students to build confidence in mathematics for an ever-growing and dynamic society. There is an increasing need for students to understand and be able to use mathematics as the world rapidly changes. Despite the important role that mathematics plays in society, there have always been concerns about students' poor performance. Thus, proper teaching, learning techniques, and strategies in mathematics have become extremely essential.

METHODS

The researcher used purposive sampling in determining the research population. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the obtained data. Grade 7 students of Tagaytay City National High School served as respondents in this study during the school year 2017-2018. This action research is purely descriptive in nature which uses pre-test/post-test results and survey results to address students' performance in mathematics.

RESULTS

Table 1 shows the results of the following: in the first grading period (pre-test) SD was 7.35 and the mean score was 14.70, post-test SD was 9.06 and the mean score was 25.04; in the second grading the SD was 6.67 and the mean score was 11.98 while the post-test result of SD was 8.77, mean score was 20.05; in the third grading pre-test SD was 6.27 and the mean score was 11.45 while post-test SD was 8.55 and the mean score was 20.62; and in the fourth grading pre-test SD result was 7.69 with a mean score of 14.09 while the post-test SD was 11.80 with a mean score of 25.35. This means that there was an increasing value between the SD and the mean score. In Table 2, post-test shows that the grades did climb higher. The students had a real grasp of the concepts and basically were able to explain the subject matter very well. This was astonishing to the teacher that even low-achieving students could look at the problems and concepts they missed and know exactly why they had missed it. The learners were able to enjoy learning mathematics concepts and participate more.

DISCUSSIONS

Mbungua et al. (2012) found that non-traditional teaching strategies are highly effective in reducing students' poor performance in mathematics. It shows that incorporating strategies such as games, use of manipulative tools, etc. affects student performance and causes students to engage in the learning process. This study recommends the conduct of similar studies that will raise the performance of learners in mathematics.