The Use of Guided Discovery Methods to Assist Senior Secondary School Students to Overcome their Difficulties in Pythagoras Theorem
The Use of Guided Discovery Methods to Assist Senior Secondary School Students to Overcome their Difficulties in Pythagoras Theorem
ABSTRACT
The study focused on the use of guided discovery methods to assist senior secondary school students to overcome their difficulties in pythagoras theorem. The design of the research was an action research. The study used 52 students, and these students were exposed to cooperative learning strategies. Students completed a 7-week unit on the basic principles of genetics, Mendelian genetics and inheritance aspect of integrated science.
The data of the study was collected by using pretest and posttest items. The students’ pretest and posttest scores were subjected to Microsoft excel and percentages of mean. The results affirmed that when students have the opportunity to cooperate with other colleagues in learning, their academic performance would be enhanced.
Furthermore, teachers who guide students through cooperative learning are bound to reduce their work load as students do most of the learning on their own.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
In general, most students have developed negative stereotypes to mathematics as a subject. Most students perceive mathematics as a difficult subject which only exceptional students can pursue.
Several reasons have been suggested for these negative attitudes of students towards mathematics. Some of these include students’ undesirable experiences in previous mathematics courses with instructors. Moreover, lack of needed skills to learn and apply mathematical concepts, lack of motivation to work hard in mathematics classes, home backgrounds. Also, school and classroom environments, biases of peer group, the media’s portrayal of mathematicians, and students perceptions of rewards associated with learning (Rogers & Ford, 1997).
Mathematics anxiety, the fear of mathematics learning, and apprehension toward mathematicians and mathematics-related activities are also results of these factors (Rogers & Ford,1997). Modern life also requires general mathematical literacy for every citizen and this is why the study of mathematics is compulsory for all students at the basic level and secondary levels of education.
This is the only way by which the country can create a mathematics culture towards achieving the country’s strategic programmed of mathematics ,science and technological literacy in the shortest possible time (Teaching Syllabus for SHS Mathematiccs, 2007).
The Use of Guided Discovery Methods to Assist Senior Secondary School Students to Overcome their Difficulties in Pythagoras Theorem
This necessarily raises the questions of how to improve students’ attitudes toward mathematics, and whether the way we teach mathematics plays a significant role in this challenge. In short, it is not only what we teach but also how we teach it.
These are important factors that one needs to take into consideration on how to improve student success (Moore, 1989). Due to this, learning of mathematics has been more abstract than being concrete, hence making it difficult for students to understand the basic concepts in mathematics and hence fail woefully in its application in examinations and real life situation.
As Albert Einstein puts it “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in School” Because science is more abstract to students, they try to memorize without understanding of the concept and hence forget everything after writing their examination.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Mathematics is one of the basic essential subjects that a learner needs a good pass in it to be able to enroll into the high School and even to the various tertiary institutions. Most teachers of mathematics especially in Ghana mostly use one method of delivery thus traditional method of delivery which is mostly said to be lecture method.
This however has not been of help to the learners since learning becomes more abstract than concrete hence making it difficult for them to understand and this leads to their failure in mathematics, therefore making them unable to enter into the tertiary institutions.
However, there are several methods of teaching and learning of mathematics. One of these methods is students engaging in rote learning of mathematics.
Biechle and Snowman (1997) highlighted the importance of learner’s thinking processes using Ausubel’s suggestion that whether a student engaged in meaningful or rote learning depended on the learner’s intention, or learning set in addition to the nature of the learning task. They indicated that every child has unique cognitive structure and many students believed that memorization is the only way to learn.
Therefore, these students use rote memorization approach to learn even logically organized problem or discovery problems. For example, there was a sharp decline in student performance as 47.1% excelled in Elective Mathematics in 2013 as against 75.1% in 2012 while 36.8% excelled in Core Mathematics in 2013 as against 49.9% in 2012 (VEDICTMATHGHANA , 2014).
The cause may probably be due to teachers’ inability to vary their teaching methods .Most of the teachers use lecture method or the traditional method of teaching; they do not use variety of teaching methods.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study is to improve the attitude and performance of JHS one students of Ahafoman Junior High School through the use of cooperative strategies.
1.4 The objective of the study
Based on the purpose of study, the objectives of this researcher are to:
- Analyze students’ response to questions in order to determine their understanding of concepts in mathematics.
- Use cooperative teaching and learning strategies to improve students understanding of concepts in mathematics.
- Determine the performance of students after the use of cooperative learning instructional strategies
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The study underlines the following research questions:
- What is the attitude of students in mathematics after the use of the cooperative learning instructional approach?
- What is the difference in the performance of the students in mathematics before and after being exposed to cooperative learning instructional strategies?
- What is the gender difference in students’ performance in mathematics before and after exposure to cooperative learning strategies?
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The results of the study will serve as a guide and provide teachers with innovative approach in the delivery of mathematics lessons. The research would help teachers in the use of cooperative learning instructional strategies in the classroom.
It would also help educational curriculum designers to place more emphasis on cooperative learning instructional strategies in the designing of the curriculum. The attitude of students towards mathematics will change from negative to positive.
1.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The main limitation in this study was that there were possibilities of the students under this study interacting with each other outside the classroom.
Another limitation was related to the absenteeism of some students in the accessible group. Some members of the groups absented themselves regularly, mostly due to truancy. This might induce error and reduce group differences. One of the limitations is time. The teaching method is time consuming because they involved the use of a lot of activities.
Definition of Terms
Academic Achievement
Academic achievement means knowledge attained or skills developed in the School subjects usually planned by test scores or by marks assigned by teachers or by both.
Cooperative learning
Cooperative learning is a process in which students learn by working in small groups and helping each other’s’ learning for a common goal. A group working becomes cooperative learning if every member of the group knows that he or she can’t be successful unless the other members are successful.
Cooperative learning group
“ A group that meets all the criteria for being a cooperative group and out performs reasonable expectations, given at membership” (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1998, p.11).
Abbreviations
WASSCE: West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination
SHS: Senior High School
JHS: Junior High School
BECE: Basic Education Certification Examination
CONCLUSION
Within the limits of experimental and measurement error, the use of cooperative instructional strategies has a significant effect on academic performance of students in learning integrated science.
According to Bhutto (2011), the students said their teachers used one-way lecture method with allowing no question, activities, involvement of learners. Bhutto (2011) also found that teachers did not support questioning, discussion, students’ presentation, and any student-activities at all.
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