Numerical Literacy and Students' Attitudes Towards Mathematics Instruction: Basis for Proposed Innovation Teaching Strategies

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Attitudes, whether positive or negative, learned or acquired, have a tremendous effect on the manner in which a person governs his or her life. Attitudes shape our religious beliefs, tolerances, goals and achievement processes and our mental health. No matter the stage in which one is in life, attitudes are an integral part of all that we do, present and future. The problem of educators nowadays, therefore, is to encourage the pupils to study diligently and to develop positive attitudes towards Mathematics. In this study analysis of the numerical literacy and the students' attitudes were analyzed for teachers to adopt and create innovative teaching strategies that foster greater academic learning among high school students.

METHODS

The descriptive method of research was utilized using the questionnaire, observation, and unstructured interview to draw the data needed. The appropriateness of this method was based on the fact that the main purpose was to determine the numerical literacy and the students' attitudes towards Mathematics instructions and used them as a basis of proposed innovative teaching strategies.

RESULTS

The level of numerical literacy of the respondents is good expressed in the mean of 81.08% and a standard deviation of 3.37. From the 223 respondents, 14 or 6.28% had a positive attitude to the greater extent, 52 had a positive attitude towards mathematics instruction, 146 had undecided attitudes, 10 had a negative attitude and 1 manifested negative attitude to the greater extent. As reported and ranked by the student respondents the first three strategies always used by the teacher were demonstration, drill and practice and whole class discussion. The very significant agreement was noted between the mathematics teachers and students in terms of strategies identified, as indicated by computed rho of 0.911 which lies between + 0.71 to + 0.99 which denotes very high relationships among variables.

DISCUSSIONS

The results demonstrated that there is so much to be desired in terms of increasing the numerical literacy of the students. A faculty development program for mathematics teacher should focus on equipping them with skills and competencies in the development and application of newer and appropriate strategies to be cascaded to students to heighten their interest and create favorable attitudes. Mathematics teachers must foster a classroom environment that will enable the students to realize the applicability and indispensability of mathematics in all the areas of human endeavor.