Chapter Iv

CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS Introduction This chapter presents the results and conclusions of the data. The data are analyzed using various statistical methods and presented in written and graph form. Results Of the approximately 90 eighth grade students, 49 returned consent forms and were given the survey. The survey consisted of 14 Likert scale questions and three open-ended questions. The Likert scale range was from 1 (strongly agree) to 6 (strongly disagree). A score of 1 also indicates a strong negative attitude toward math for that specific question. One of the open-ended questions was “what grade do you think you will make in this class?” which indicates the students perception of their achievement in that math class. The other two open-ended questions were related to classroom affective environment. (see appendix 1) The students mean score for the 14 Likert scale questions was compared to their expected grade. The results showed a highly significant correlation (df=47, r=.704, p<.001) indicating that students with a negative attitude toward math expect worse grades than those with positive attitudes. This was an expected result and emphasizes the need to change negative attitudes toward math. The results are plotted in Graph 1 showing the strong positive correlation.

Scatter Graph 100

90

80

70 Expected Grade

60

50 0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Mean of Scores (df=47, r=.704, p<.001)

Graph 1

The questions covered many areas that could possibly be related the negative attitudes. Of the 49 students 18 (37 percent) indicated a dislike for math (see question 1). While there is no comparison to students who dislike other subject matter areas, 37 percent is a large number of students who dislike math. Like vs Dislike

37%

63%

Graph 2

Graph 3 compares the answers of students who like and dislike math

using the mean for each question. Answer Comparison 6

5

4

3

Dislike Like

Answer

Agree = 1, Disagree = 6 2

1

0 2

1

3

5

4

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Question

Graph 3

This study’s focus was on students who dislike math, therefore those students’ answers are now considered. For the students who dislike math, there were many answers that were correlated. Some of the interesting and important correlations are discussed. Table 1 shows the correlations between answers of the students who indicated they dislike math. The correlations are for each question compared to every other question. For example, the first column shows the correlation of answers on question 1 with questions 2 through 15.

Questio n 1

1 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

2

0.129

1

3

0.233

4

0.487 -0.04 2

5

0.508

1 -0.01 8

1

0.025

0.230

0.250

0.104

1

6

0.315

0.414

0.485

0.057

0.263

1

7

0.176

0.534

0.468

0.282

0.455

0.253

1

8

0.267

0.551

0.286

0.220

0.456

0.218

0.447

1

9

0.439

0.431

0.006

1

0.174

0.076

0.164 -0.11 0

0.189

0.179

0.385 -0.40 9

0.219

10

0.020 -0.30 1

0.130

0.036

0.371

1

11

0.153

0.387

0.052

0.322

0.536

0.135

0.453

0.600

0.189

0.098

1

12

0.346

0.215

0.107

0.194

0.422

0.697

0.273

0.595

1

0.166

0.234

0.589 -0.28 5

0.348

13

0.170 -0.00 5

0.484

0.355

0.223

0.338

0.223

0.343

0.365

0.183

14

0.025 -0.17 0

0.159

0.280

0.354

0.261

0.068

0.311

0.111

0.342

0.196

0.282

0.401

1 -0.12 5

0.197

0.261

0.311

0.257

0.213

0.523

0.410

0.061

0.154

0.408

0.395

0.352

15

Table 1 (df=34, p<.05=.331, p<.01=.428. p<.001=.527)

Although there are many correlations, three important correlations related to the research question of this study and previous research are discussed. First, “I don’t like math” had highly significant correlations with: “I’m not good at math” and “I dread having to do math”, and a significant correlation with: “I’m afraid to answer questions in math class”. Second, “The personality of the math teacher is not very important” had significant correlations with “Math is too hard”, “When taking a math test, I usually feel nervous and uneasy” (highly significant), “I’m afraid to ask questions in math class” (highly significant), “I’m afraid to answer questions in math class”, and “I will only take math courses that are required” (highly significant). Lastly, “I will only take math courses that are required” had significant correlations with “The personality of the math teacher is not

1

0.37

very important”, “Math is boring”, “When taking a math test, I usually feel nervous and uneasy”, “It scares me to think I will be taking harder more advanced math”, and “I’m afraid to ask questions in math class.” Of the 18 students who indicated they dislike math, a tally was taken of the questions for which the students strongly agreed (1 on the Likert scale) and is shown in table 2 below.

“It scares me to think I will be taking harder or more advanced math “I’ve had at least one year I fell behind in math” “I’m not good at math” “I will only take math courses that are required” “When taking a math test, I usually feel nervous and uneasy” “Math is too hard” “Math is boring” “I dread having to do math” “I’m afraid to answer questions in math class” Table 2

6 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1

Further insight into students’ thoughts about math and the classrooms affective environment can be obtained in reviewing answers to the last two open-ended questions. For this analysis, all students’ responses were used (like and dislike). The first question was “What can teachers do to make math more enjoyable?” Following is a list of the most popular responses along with the number of students making that suggestion:  Play more math games – 19  Fun activities/Make it more fun/interesting – 12

 Have group assignments - 5  Less homework – 4  Use real life examples – 4 The second question was “Describe your best and worst experience in math.” The overwhelming responses for both best and worst experiences were related to achievement (grades, understanding particular topic, test scores, etc.). Some examples of the students’ answers are: 

“My best experience was when I could answer all the questions and worst was when I really make a bad grade on an important test”



“Ratio was my best and integers was my worst”



“Best – when I actually started to understand, worst – when we do algebra”



“best – making a B, worst – making a C”



“Well, the best would have to be when I pass a math test. I have my worst experience when I do poorly on a math exam” Summary

This chapter analyzed the data from the surveys. These results suggest a significant number of students dislike math and there were several significant correlations between answers that may indicate the cause of their dislike.