Assessing Multiplicative Thinking Using Rich Tasks
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1. Chapter 4
Presentation, Analysis and Interpretation of Data
This chapter presents, analyzes and interprets the data gathered from the students
of Laboratory High School at Laguna State Polytechnic University in determining factors
affecting Performance in Mathematics.
Extent of Interest of the students in Mathematics
Students’ level of interest in Mathematics was rated based on the students’ self-
perceived level of preparation for the Mathematics subject, attention given to teacher’s
lectures, active participation in class, their desire to get good grades and their desire to
listen to discussions or attention class. Table 1 shows the weighted mean of students’
interest in Mathematics.
The students gave a unifying perception on their level of interest in Mathematics.
The item “I want to get good grades on tests, quizzes, assignments and projects.” ranked
first with an average weighted mean of 4.77. The item “I get frustrated when the
discussion is interrupted or the teacher is absent.” got the lowest rating with an average
weighted mean of 2.88.
Table 1. Extent of Interest in Mathematics as Perceived by the Students,
2. The overall weighted mean of interest in Mathematics is 3.90. This means students are
“often” interested in this subject. Among questionnaire items, the desire to get good
grades is the most interesting to students but the desire to attend discussion received the
lowest extent of interest.
3. Extent of Study Habits as Perceived by the Students
The criteria in obtaining students’ level of study habits were based on their
personal tendency or pattern of action in studying when they are in school days. Table 2
shows the lists of ten (10) items about situational/action statements used in the data
gathering and the corresponding weighted means of the students’ responses ranked from
the highest to lowest weighted mean together with the verbal interpretation.
Overall, the extent of study habits as perceived by the students themselves
gained an “often” result with an overall weighted mean of 3.60. Among each
situational/action statements or items given, the item “I study harder to improved
my performance when I get low grades.” ranked first with an average weighted
mean of 4.34 but the item “I spend less time with my friends during school days
to concentrate more on my studies.” got the lowest extent of study habits in
Mathematics.
4. Extent of Teachers’ Personality Traits
Extent of teachers’ personality traits were ranked based on their
relationship with the students, their smartness, confidence and firmness in making
decisions, their imposing proper discipline and not lenient in following the
prescribed rules, their personality with good sense of humor and their appreciation
to suggestions and opinions and their worthy of praise. Table 3 shows the data on
the extent of personality traits of the teachers with the computed weighted mean,
rank and interpretation.
The table reveals that item number 1 ranked first with an average weighted
mean of 4.60 and interpreted as “always” which means that the teacher always has
a good relationship with the students. The item number 2 ranked second with an
average weighted mean of 4.58 also interpreted as “always” which means that the
teacher always shows their smartness, confidence and firmness in making
decisions. Items 3, 4, and 5 interpreted as “often” with the weighted means of
4.48, 4.43, and 4.41 for ranks 3, 4, and 5 respectively.
5. Extent of Teaching Skills as Perceived by the students
Table 4 presents the extent of teaching skills acquired by the teachers in
Mathematics as perceived by the students. The overall weighted mean of the teachers in
terms of teaching skills is 4.41 which is interpreted as “often”.
Looking closely at the table item per item, it was observed that the “The teacher has
mastery of the subject matter” has the highest average weighted mean among the five
items and interpreted as “always” followed by the item “The teacher explains the
objectives of the lesson clearly at the start of each period” also interpreted as “always”.
Items “The teacher is updated with present trends, relevant to the subject matter” , “The
teacher is organized in presenting subject matter by systematically following course
outline”, and “The teacher uses various strategies, teaching aids/devices and techniques
in presenting the lessons” interpreted as “often” with the average weighted means of
4.46, 4.40 and 3.96 for ranks 3, 4. and 5 respectively.
6. Extent of Instructional Materials
Table 5 presents the extent of instructional materials used by the teachers
in Mathematics. It shows that the teachers “always”used chalk and blackboard in
explaining the lessons with an average weighted mean of 4.93. The teachers used
workbooks/textbooks and materials for project development interpreted as
“sometimes” with the average weighted means of 3.45 and 2.55 for ranks 2 and 3.
The teachers used articles interpreted as “rarely” with an average weighted mean
of 2.48. Lastly, used of power point presentation got the lowest extent of
instructional materials with an average weighted mean of 1.49 interpreted as
“sometimes”.
The overall extent of instructional materials used by the Math teachers as
perceived by the students gained “sometimes” result with an overall average
weighted mean of 2.98. This means that the teacher in Mathematics sometimes
uses instructional materials.
Level of Performance of Students in Mathematics
Table 6 presents the level of performance of Laboratory high school students in
Mathematics in terms of some measure as mean, median, mode, standard deviation,
skewness and kurtosis. The grades presented are the means of the grades of students-
7. respondents in third grading period obtained through documentary analysis of Form 138
provided by the adviser.
Table reveals that the mean performance of students in Mathematics was
“satisfactory” with an average of 88.23 median of 89 mode of 91 and standard deviation
of 4.84. The skewness of the level of students is -1.13 which, which skewed to the
left/negatively skewed while kurtosis is 2.10, which is leptokurtic or has a relatively
peaked distribution.
It reveals that several of the students really wanted the subject of Mathematics.
Only few of the students got low and the rest got the high grades.
Significant Relationship of the Mathematics Performance of the Students in
Student-related factors and Teacher-related factors
Table 7 presents the significant relationship of the factors affecting Mathematics
Performance of Laboratory High School. As seen on the table, the Pearson r of the five(5)
factors such as Interest, Study Habits, Personality Traits, Teaching Skills and
Instructional Materials have _______ degree of correlation but the t revealed the lesser
value of 2.01. It means that there is no significant relationship to Mathematics
performance of the students. It reveals that the interest, study habits, personality traits,
teaching skills and instructional materials do not affect the Mathematics performance of
the Students of Laguna State Polytechnic University.