Improving the Mastery Level of Grade 5 Pupils of the Bantigue Elementary School in Performing the Three Basic Operations Involving Decimals using BALL GAMES

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Mathematics plays a very important role in peoples' daily living. Often, it is used in so many ways like budgeting, time, money, work and others. But as a grade six teacher, most of my pupils have difficulty in Mathematics because they lack the skills in the fundamental operations which must be mastered at the primary level. I have witnessed the results of my pupils' daily performances in the third grading period which tackled the operations on decimals where pupils showed a lack of mastery of the basic operations. In this study, I have thought of BALL GAMES in the form of Classic Pinoy games as an intervention program to address the problems met in the operations of development. The game uses crumpled papers that are formed into a ball with the mathematical equation written in it.

METHODS

Quasi-experimental and descriptive-evaluative methods of research were used in the completion of this action research. A total of 45 grade 5 pupils were involved in the implementation of the ball games which was implemented in 10 days. Pretest and posttest were the sources of data to measure the pupils' performance and level of mastery in decimals.

RESULTS

Based on the gathered data and findings, it was revealed that there are 10 least mastered competencies in the operations of decimals of grade 5 pupils and based on the results the mastery level was not mastered. Pretest results showed that the average performance is 11.20. After the implementation of Ball Games, the pupils showed marked improvement in the posttest with an average of 28.98. A significant difference was found in the level of performance before and after using such intervention. this means that the results of pretest and posttest are entirely different from each other. Using score analysis, the level of mastery has an average MPS of 27.12 (not mastered) to 57.74 (nearly mastered).

DISCUSSIONS

The results demonstrate that ball games as an intervention program be used in conducting mathematics enhancement classes as it implied marked improvement on the pupils' performance in three fundamental operations involving decimals. It can be connected to the study conducted by Hilderbrandth (retrieved 2016) where she observed that group games provide a rich context for social and mental development that repeated play gives children opportunities to develop new strategies for performing mathematical computations. The results further implied that Ball Games is an effective intervention in improving the mastery level in Mathematics.