Epistemological Beliefs, Misconceptions and Academic Performance of College Students in Plane Trigonometry and Selected Correlates

Abstract

This study is directed towards investigating the epistemological beliefs
about mathematics as well as misconceptions and academic performance of
CSU Piat students in Plane Trigonometry and their selected correlates. The
study is basically a quantitative research utilizing the descriptive-correlational
research design. A total of 261 participants were covered in the study from the
three colleges, namely: College of Agriculture, College of Criminal Justice and
Administration and College of Information Technology. The Epistemological
Beliefs Survey for Mathematics (EBSM) was utilized to measure the Mathematics
Belief Scale of the participants. This study adopted various descriptive statistics
used for data analysis such as weighted mean, ANOVA and Pearson Product
Movement Correlation. Descriptive statistics revealed that first year students
of Cagayan State University (CSU) Piat Campus do not meet the minimum
competency and mastery level of basic and tertiary mathematics. Such poor
academic performance is principally attributed to some misconceptions about
essential concepts, procedures and principles in Mathematics. Significantly, they
have less developed epistemological beliefs, understandings and appreciations
of the nature of Mathematics as a discipline. Furthermore, females and those
enrolled in the College of Agriculture have less understanding of the nature and
learning process in mathematical knowledge. Interestingly, although females
have less developed epistemological beliefs in Mathematics, they nonetheless,
performed better in their Plane Trigonometry subject which explains the absence
of correlation between epistemological beliefs and Mathematics performance.
It must be noted that, academic performance in Plane Trigonometry cannot
be attributed to a single factor like epistemological beliefs because there are
numerous factors that interplay in one’s understanding and mastery of the
subject. Finally, the correlates of academic performance in Plane Trigonometry
are high school Mathematics grade and first semester College Mathematics
grade. This showed a direct relationship between Basic Mathematics and
College Algebra grades in influencing one’s performance in Plane Trigonometry.