Factors Affecting the Mathematics Problem Solving

Skills of Pulot Shore Elementary School 5th Grade

I. INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE

Since education is one of the reason for the existence of society where its member learn

to develop and share knowledge, one of its primary objectives is to create individuals who can

read instructions in their daily lives, make decisions about issues requiring social participation,

read media and are able to overcome potential problems to be encountered in future

(Karataş&Güven, 2003); (Özsoy,Kuruyer&Çakiroglo, 2012).

Mathematics subject is one the most important subject that needed to be taught to every

pupil. But according to (Ulu, 2017), problem- solving process was defined as a complicated

process requiring multiple skills together.

Despite of many strategies used by teachers in teaching problem- solving process in

Mathematics, still, most of the 5th Grade pupils of Pulot Shore Elementary School got low score

in their given tests. This made the teachers wondering why. They came up with the question:

“What is the problem?”

To address this very streaming scenario, the researchers of this study wants to investigate

the reason behind the low performance of 5th Grade pupils of Pulot Shore Elementary School in

processing and solving word problem in Mathematics subject focusing on pupils’ basic skills,

attitude and parental involvement as affecting factors to provide any suitable intervention that

help the pupils.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

The following literature reviewed in this chapter focuses on the factors affecting

Mathematical skills of the learners and how they relate to each other.

Gallo & Johnson (2008) administered a test of basic math skills to 696 students enrolled

in various college economics courses in order to understand the factors influencing a student's

ability to apply basic math skills in practical settings. Students with strong elementary math

skills perform significantly better in applied contexts and that taking more math classes in

college improves a student's ability to apply mathematics substantially. One of the major

conclusions of their paper is that among the controls for mathematical background, mastery of

very elementary math skills as measured by performance on their administered exam is of utmost

importance. The results of their research pointed out that a substantial number of students lack

the mastery of very elementary math concepts. Hence, they suggested that professors identify

students with weak basic math skills early on so that some type of remediation can be done to

bring these students up to par (Gallo & Johnson, 2008) as cited in (Silao Jr., 2018)

Deficiencies in basic math skills in the classroom typically lead to inaccurate

computation that created obstacles when problem solving. After a thorough review of the

literature, three common probable causes were found to be lack of prior knowledge, negative

attitude towards math, varied teaching methods (Hudson et Al., 2010). The study of (Lunsford &

Poplin, 2011) stated that “Our 702 students had a mean score on the 15-point basic skills test of

9.449 with a standard deviation of 2.532. Johnson and Kuennen‟s 292 students had a mean score

of 11.10 with standard deviation 2.31. A quick two sample t-test shows strong evidence that our

students tended to score lower, on average, on the 15-point basic skills test t df p     9.97,

593, 0.001 . This is not surprising to us and was in fact what we suspected since Johnson and
Kuennen worked primarily with business statistics students who had a mathematics prerequisite

before taking their statistics course whereas our students had no mathematics prerequisite and

were mostly liberal arts and social science majors.” This implied that students with a very good

Mathematics basic skills perform better than those who don’t have.

Attitude

There are some research literature concerning the relationship between attitude toward

mathematics and achievement in mathematic. According to the American Psychological

Association, as cited by (Kennedy,2019) feelings that impact a person’s mood and emotional

reaction can be referred to as affect, and attitude towards math is one example of an affective state.

Gomez-Chacon (2000) found that one of the variables with most influence on

mathematics teaching and learning relate to the pupils' attitude, their perspective on the world of

mathematics, and their social identity.

The findings of the research revealed there are various factors that are responsible for

poor achievement in Mathematics. Most of these factors are influenced by negative attitudes.

Attitudes cross many different aspects of everyday life for example, in businesses, motivational

speakers are invited and team building exercises are conducted to help inspire employees to have

a more positive attitude towards their work in order to increase productivity. In sports coaches

spend a significant amount of practice time talking to their players about “believing in success”

and reminding players that any team can beat any other team on any given day (Rikhotso, 2015).

On the other hand, the result of (Dowker, Bennett, & Smith, 2012) study foud out that young

children appear to show relatively positive attitudes to mathematics, though a larger sample of

different ages would be needed to confirm this. They show little relationship between
mathematics anxiety and mathematical performance, but they do show a relationship between

self-rating and mathematical performance, which seems to develop during the later primary

years. There are also significant relationships between self-rating and other attitudes. It is thus

arguable that self-rating, rather than mathematics anxiety, is the key factor in the primary school

age group, and that perhaps researchers on younger children’s attitudes to mathematics should

focus more on self-rating.

The findings also suggest that with an increased number of students feeling comfortable

and enjoying mathematics lessons while studying mathematics, their engagement level also

increased. Thus, with an increase in confidence, seeing the importance of mathematics and

engagement in mathematics lessons, it can be stated that students’ attitudes towards learning

mathematics also improved (Sanchal & Sharma, 2017).

When students are satisfied with the activities in the learning environment, learning

would be more permanent and meaningful. Therefore, this situation is important for students to

have positive attitude (Köğcea, Yıldızb , Aydınc & Altındağd, 2009)

The research of Mohd, Mahmood & Mohd (2011) entitled "Factors that Influence

students in Mathematics Achievement" revealed that there is significant relationship between the

level of patience towards problem-solving and mathematics achievement. It also reflects that

there is significant relationship between attitude towards problem solving and mathematics

achievement. On the other hand, the finding shows that there is no significant relationship

between the level of confidence and willingness towards problem solving and mathematics

achievement. This research also reflects that there is significant relationship between attitude

(patience, confidence and willingness) towards problem solving and mathematics achievement.
 Attitude toward mathematics took both direct and indirect effect on students’ mathematic

problem solving by passing through concentration on classes. The reason why the attitude toward

the subject had a positive effect on the students’ problem solving at 0.05 level of significance

was because the pupils had a good attitude on mathematics and realized that it was important to

learn so as to apply the knowledge in daily life, then the students loved and enjoyed learning,

they also concentrated on their solving problem and they could improve themselves at the result

(Pimta, Tayruakham and Nuangchalerm, 2009).

Parental Involvement

Overtime, educators have frequently pointed out the critical role of the home and family

environment in determining school success and that earlier in a child’s educational process

parental involvement begins, the more powerful the effects will be. Parents should not just send

their wards to school as a way of getting them free from their aprons for the period while they

are away, rather they should see going to school as a way of building the lives of the children and

their future too.

Olatoye, & Agbatogun, (2009) stated that “Parents should therefore devise means by

which they would be involved in the academic activities of their children. There are different

types and levels of parental involvement, individual parents and families should start from

somewhere and get involved. End should come to era where all a parent does is to supply the

needs to keep their children in school, parents should visit schools, involve themselves with

school (as much as they can afford) then identify with their young lads as early as possible in

their studies.” This study implied that parental involvement is an important predictor of pupils’

achievement. The study of Le Faivre's (2009) agreed and found out that the final report stressed
that parent involvement in mathematics and the positive behaviors and skills parents can foster in

the home to help students succeed in mathematics.

A new study by researchers at the University of Leicester and University of Leeds has

concluded that parents' efforts towards their child's educational achievement is crucial – playing

a more significant role than that of the school or child. The researchers found that parents' effort

is more important for a child's educational attainment than the school's effort, which in turn is

more important than the child's own effort (De Fraja & Zanchi, 2010).

(Johnson, 2016 stated that “I think that the biggest contributor to secondary

school student attitudes, self-efficacy, and achievement in math is parent-student discussion.

Throughout the research, examples of parent-student discussion kept appearing and showed that

when parents reinforce the importance of math to students, it makes a difference. I have learned

that achievement in math is related to parental attitudes which lead to student self-efficacy.

Parents can influence positive student attitudes the most. Even when parents are not directly

involved in the learning process for their child, they can still have a positive impact by

discussing the importance of math learning. In my opinion, when parents stress the importance of

learning math to their children, it will positively impact the student’s future success in math.

When students really believe that learning math will directly benefit them in their real lives, they

will have better attitudes toward learning. Their self-efficacy will improve when they keep

trying, and then math achievement will improve because they are more confident in themselves”.

. Analyses revealed a positive and significant correlation between both parent-perceived

and teacher-perceived parental involvement and student mathematics achievement scores

(Tenenbaum, 2018)
 Some researchers discussed about the parental involvement. However, the exact

relationships between these constructs and specific types of parental involvement are not yet

lucid (Roberts, 2021).

III. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The following research questions were formulated to guide the study:

1. What is the demographic profile of pupils in terms of :

1.1. Basic Skills Test: and,

1.2. Attitude Scale Test?

2. What is the demographic profile of the parents in terms of Parental Involvement in the pupil

learning?

3. What is the extent of the pupils' problem solving skills?

4. Is there a significant relationship between the pupils' problem solving skills and the pupil

faders when analyzed according to:

4.1. Basic skills; and.

4.2. Attitude?

5. Is there a significant relationship between the pupils' problem solving skills and the parent

factor when analyzed according to Parental Involvement?

Hypotheses H01: There is no significant relationship between the pupils' mastery of basic skills

and the pupils' problem solving skills.

H01: There is no significant relationship between the pupils' attitude towards mathematics and

the pupils' problem solving skills.

H03: There is no significant relationship between parental involvement and the pupils' problem

solving skills.

IV. SCOPE AND LIMITATION

This research will be conducted to 54 pupils of Grade 5 who are officially enrolled in the

school year 2020-2021 of Pulot Shore Elementary School.

V. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Design

This study employed the descriptive-correlational method of research; descriptive since it

examined the profile of parents and the pupils' attitude towards mathematics, and their level of

performance in basic skills; correlational since it looked into the possible relationship between

pupils and parent factor and pupil performance in mathematics problem-solving. According to

Calmorin and Calmorin (2005), descriptive correlational method is appropriate to use if

relationship between variables are to be measured.

Sampling

The participants of the study were entire population 54 Grade V pupils of Pulot Shore

Elementary School who are officially enrolled in the school year 2020-2021. Total enumeration

sampling will be used to select the respondents.

Data Collection

Four instruments will be used to collect data in this study: Basic Skills Tests; the Problem

Solving Test; Mathematics Attitude Scale; and, Parental Involvement Questionnaire (PIQ). The

Basic Skills Test and Mathematics Attitude Scale were designed to evaluate the profile of pupils

in terms of mastery of basic skills and attitude towards mathematics; the PIQ will be used to

determine the profile of the pupils' parents in terms of parental involvement; and, the problem

solving test assess the level of the pupils' problem solving skills.

To measure the basic skills and problem solving skills of the pupils in mathematics, the

Basic Skills Test and Problem Solving Tests for each grade level were developed by the

researchers based on the required competencies prescribed by the Department of Education and

with reference to the mathematics textbooks issued by the DepEd. Both tests included the

comprehension of fundamental operations, i.e., addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division

of whole numbers, fractions, and decimals, and percentage. Geometry, measurement and graph

competencies were included in the Problem Solving tests. The number of items was based on the

average length of the Division Mathematics Pretests & Post-tests and Diagnostics tests that were

being administered. The Basic Skills Test and Problem solving test were multiple-choice

objective tests with four options A, B, C, and D. Each item has one correct option (the key) and

three distracters. The correct option attracts 1 mark and the total mark obtainable is 40.

The Mathematics Attitude Scale was adapted from Snow (2011). It was composed of 20

items and contained the most frequently-referenced math interest inventories identified that were

deemed useful. It was designed to develop a math interest measure intended for elementary

grade, theoretical in design, and showed evidence of psychometric properties for mathematics.

All items therein evidenced adequate inter-correlations with the other items on the measure. An
internal consistency analysis conducted for each factor (i.e., Emotion, Value, Knowledge, and

Engagement) evidenced coefficients with acceptable ranges for a screening measure; an internal

consistency reliability coefficient of .916 for the overall score. Identifying students that are

interested in mathematics at a young age is crucial because early identification can foster interest

and develop achievement in the future. According to Schunk et al (2008), interest is a

motivational variable that is linked with educational attainment in that students are more likely to

engage in an academic activity, pay more attention, and generate higher performance's if they are

interested in the topic (Snow, 2011). A five-point scale was used. The mean score indicated the

pupil's level of attitude towards the subject mathematics based on the following scale: 5 - Highly

Positive (HP), 4 - Positive (P), 3 - Fair (F), 2 - Negative (N), and 1 - Highly Negative (HN).

The Parental Involvement Questionnaire was adapted from Cao et al (2006). It was called

Perceived Parental Influence Scale (PPI). It was assumed that parental influences could be

categorized into direct involvement and indirect involvement, and the instrument was designed

to measure the pupils' perceptions of both. The dimensions of perceived direct parental

involvement included mother's and father's assistance with homework and help with difficult

mathematics problems. The dimensions of perceived indirect involvement investigated included

mother's and father's attitude towards mathematics, encouragement, and expectations of pupil's

achievement. The instrument was intended for elementary pupils and consisted of 16 items, eight

measuring mother's influence on mathematics teaming as perceived by the pupils, and eight

measuring father's influence. The five-point Likert scale was used. For each statement, pupils

were asked to indicate whether they "Strongly Agree (SA)", "Agree (A)", "Disagree (D)", or

"Strongly Disagree (SD)".

 Mathematics Attitude Scale (Snow, 2011) and Parental Involvement Questionnaire (Cao

et al, 2006) was also cited and used by (Silao Jr, 2018) in his study conducted in Kiamba Central

School SPED Center, Kiamba, Sarangani. The result of the study showed that there is a

significant relationship between the problem solving skills and the pupils' mastery of basic skills,

attitude towards mathematics, and parental involvement.

The researchers make sure that the safety health protocol will be observed and

maintained at all times. Parental consent of the respondents and approval of local IATF will also

consider by the researchers in conducting this study since we are still in the stage of fighting and

preventing the spread of COVID-19 disease.

Ethical Issue

1. Do no harm. The participants of this research endeavor will not be involved in any

situation in which they may be harmed.

2. Privacy and anonymity. Any individual participating in this research study has a

reasonable expectation that privacy will be guaranteed. Consequently, no identifying information

about the individual will be revealed in written or other communication.

 3. Confidentiality. The participants’ information provided to the researcher will be treated

in a confidential manner.

4. Intrusiveness. The participants will be assured that the conduct of the researchers is not

excessively intrusive. Intrusiveness can mean intruding on their time, intruding on their space,

and intruding on their personal lives.

Plan for Data Analysis

To enable the researcher to present and summarize the data in accordance with the

objectives set in the study, the following statistical treatments were used.

The demographic profile of the pupil factors Attitude and Mastery of Basic Skills and

the parent factor In terms of Parental Involvement were determined using the frequency,

percentage distribution, mean, and weighted mean.

The pupils' mean score in the Mathematics Attitude Scale were described using the

following description and scale: 5 - Highly Positive (HP), 4 - Positive (P), 3 - Fair (F), 2 -

Negative (N), and 1 - Highly Negative (HN). Each positive item received a score based on

points. A = 5, B = 4, C = 3, D = 2, and E = 1. The scoring for each negatively-phrased, i.e., items

4 and 11 was reversed, i.e., A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, D = 4, and F = 5.

The pupils' mean score in Basic Skills Test and Problem Solving Test were described

using the National Achievement Test Result Scale. The following were its bracket and

descriptions: 75 percent - up – Mastered, 50 percent - 74 percent – Nearly Mastered, and 0 - 49

percent – Not Mastered.

Analysis of the data on the Parental Involvement Questionnaire was done by calculating

the mean score of each pupil on the PIQ. To achieve this, numerical scores were assigned to five

response options given to each item on the Parental Involvement Questionnaire. The description
and scale were: Strongly Agree = Highly Positive (HP) - 5; Agree = Positive - 4; Undecided =

Fair - 3; Disagree = Negative - 2; Strongly Disagree = Highly Negative - 1. The mean scores

computed to determine the level of the pupils' parent involvement.

Chi-square test was used to determine the significant relationship between the pupils'

problem solving skills and: 1) mastery of basic skills; 2) attitude towards mathematics; and, 3)

parental involvement.

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basic skilss 3pages x 54 = 162

problem solving 3page x 54 = 162
a