Overcoming Mathematical Learning Difficulties:

A Case Study of Collaborative Research

Y. Mohd Yusof, R. Abdul Rahman,
M. R. Mohd Razali, M. S Abu*, M. N. Bakar*, and C. T. Ong,
Mathematics Dept., Faculty of Science
*Faculty of Education
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Abstract
In an earlier study conducted by Diagnostic and Remedial Mathematics Research Group
(DARMA) amongst undergraduates at UTM, it was found that the students had
difficulties in coordinating procedures and manipulating concepts (Tall & Razali, 1993).
The entry requirement of student in UTM is the Malaysian Certificate of Education
(SPM1). Therefore, it was decided that DARMA should also looked into the mathematics
teaching and learning at the secondary level. A pilot study was conducted at the Sri
Skudai Secondary School. The subject of the study was a group of students from various
streams (Commerce, Agriculture, Science and Arts) studying mathematics for the SPM.
The study was carried out with the collaboration of the mathematics teachers at Sri
Skudai (SS).
This paper will present a brief description of the collaboration between the teachers in
the school and DARMA. Scheduled meetings between the teachers and DARMA members
were set out to discuss the mathematical learning difficulties as well as alternative
teaching strategies. DARMA researched possible misconceptions and difficult solution
procedures found in the text and presented it to the teachers for consideration. The
teachers contributed further to the list. Alternative teaching strategies were then
discussed and suggested. The teachers then implemented the suggestions in their
classrooms. They reported their experiences back to DARMA. Thus a symbiotic
relationship was established between DARMA and the teachers. The teachers found the
support given by DARMA motivating and helpful. These findings have contributed greatly
to a compilation of alternative strategies for classroom practice.

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SPM is approximately equivalent to the GCSE in the UK. The examination is taken by

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Introduction
In recent years much has been written about the importance of collaboration
between mathematics teachers in school, curriculum developers, teacher educators and
other relevant authorities to ensure the success of mathematics education in schools.
This study was conducted by establishing a research relationship with
mathematics teachers at SS (DARMA, Z. Hussin, A.R. Kaprawi, 1995) taking into
account their concerns and experiences as well as giving us an opportunity to conduct the
study on the students without disrupting their learning activities.
Its main objectives were (a) to identify students' misconceptions, (b) to analyse
the presentation of mathematical concepts and procedures in the textbook and (c) to
devise alternative teaching strategies. All textbooks used in schools must be approved by
the Ministry of Education and must follow the national curriculum guidelines closely.
Within a two years study period (fourth and fifth forms), students will study topics from
algebra, geometry, functions and basic statistics.
The subject of the study was a group of fifth form students who would be sitting
for the Malaysian Certificate of Education (SPM) which is a major examination after 11
years of schooling. It is also an important entrance qualification for most higher
education courses in local institutions and is in fact a main qualifying entry requirement
for students who would like to further their studies in UTM.

Methodology
The study was conducted with close collaboration with the mathematics teachers
at SS and was carried out in several phases.

Phase 1: Investigation of learning difficulties

Weekly meetings was held to share the teachers' experiences, to identify the
problems that they faced in their teaching as well as to establish areas of research focus.
Based on an earlier study of UTM students' performance, we had compiled a list of
expected learning difficulties (Tall & Razali, 1993). This was followed with a study of
the teachers' pedagogical practice. The discussion disclosed the teachers' own difficulties
in content delivery. The teachers also compiled their own evaluation of students'
difficulties and we also looked at the past students' examination results in SS.

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Phase 2: Concept development
The students' misconceptions of each topic in the syllabus were discussed. Their
problem-solving performance in the classroom was also evaluated to substantiate our
earlier assumptions about students' difficulties. As part of our investigation into concept
development, an analysis of the textbook was carried out to identify (i) approaches used
in developing the mathematical concepts, (ii) the generic examples provided to build up
students understanding of the concepts and (iii) the procedural strategies used in the
book. In this phase, we also uncovered that some teachers had difficulties in teaching
certain topics, namely, latitudes and longitudes, logarithm, functions, inequality,
probability, matrices and area under the curves.

Phase 3: Alternative strategies

Based on the research and these data, DARMA looked at alternative methods of
content delivery that could increase teachers' confidence, enhance students' understanding
and/or to remedy students' misconceptions. We looked at procedural strategies other than
those in the text to enable teachers to show students alternative manipulation procedures.

Phase 4: Implementation in the classroom

Our suggestions are then discussed with the teachers and they then implemented
the resulting teaching scheme for the particular topic. Consequently, they would provide
us with feedback on their experiences in the classroom. This information provided us
with more data either for reinforcement or revision of the teaching strategies.
These four phases were not carried out in sequence and some were carried out
con-currently. The discussions were usually on going in response to the situation and in
conjunction with the teachers lessons plan.
It should be noted that the SPM is an important national examination and thus to
pass the examination was the students' main objective. To cater for the students' concerns,
we conducted several special sessions preparing them for the examination. These sessions
focussed on increasing their motivation, study and learning techniques as well as tips on
how to choose and answer the examination questions

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Results
Our results will be categorised into three important areas, namely, (1) analysis of
textbook, (2) misconceptions and (3) alternative strategies.
(1) Analysis of textbook  the textbook (Liew Su Tim & Leow Soo Kar, 1992) is
the main reference used by both teachers and students, it was decided that DARMA
should also come out with a teaching scheme based on the book.
(a) Approaches used in developing the mathematical concepts  the authors of
the textbook had followed the Ministry's syllabus closely. In the book,
introduction to the mathematical topics was through presentation of the
historical background, examples of situations in real life and its applications
as a motivation to the development of the concepts. Generally the
development of the contents was analytical, moving from the specific to the
general.
There were occurrences where the authors used conflicting symbols and
terminologies. As an example, under the topic of transformations, the authors
5
used T    to describe a translation 5 units horizontally and 2 units
 2
vertically. However, in a different context, they also used T (S1 )  S 2 where
S1 refers to the object , S2 to the image and T for the translation. Teachers
attention were drawn to these contradictions and alternative representations
were suggested.

(b) The generic examples provided to build up students students' understanding of

the concepts  there were many examples provided in the book but they did
not take into consideration the cognitive development of the students. The
examples moved from one level of difficulty to another in a disconnected
manner. The examples used should be able to build and reinforce the concepts
and thus we had suggested more relevant examples to be used by the teachers.
For example, under the topic Straight Lines, the text presented various
examples giving different formulas for the straight lines in specific situations
without relating to the general formula. Thus students were inclined to

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 memorise rather than making connections between the specific to the general
situation. This was obvious from data collected about the students'
misconceptions in this topic (see (2) below).
Where appropriate, we had also suggested an approach that coordinated
the need for students to visualise a problem and the ability to write it
mathematically.
(c) The procedural strategies used in the book  the teachers commented that
students found certain procedures in the book were difficult to follow. We
came up with alternative procedural manipulations that were considered
easier. Please refer to Appendix 1 for an example of the suggestions made in
one particular topic. In this respect, we had given the teachers other materials
and examples that improved upon the book.
(2) Misconceptions - the teachers had identified the students' misconceptions and
these added to our own previous assumptions. We had classified the students'
errors based on Orton (1987) with the following categories, (i) structural
(conceptual errors) (ii) arbitrary (application of knowledge) and (iii) executive
(inability to select the correct procedures). For example, for the topic of Straight
Lines, among the misconceptions identified were: students could not make out
that x = 0 and y = 0 are straight lines; could not see why straight lines have
constant gradients (under (i)). Frequently, students will add a minus sign if they
expect that the line will have a negative slope because they could not perceive that
the general formula for the gradient already takes into consideration the positive
and negative slopes (under (ii)).
Usually, a teacher would follow the text closely and would sometimes skip
certain topics that they thought students would find difficult. From our
observations, we discovered that the teachers also found these topics difficult to
teach. For instance, on the topic relating to the study of latitudes and longitudes
(refer to Appendix 1), the teachers could not present a visualisation of the
problem in order to help students understand the underlying concepts and
computation needed. We suggested to the teachers an alternative approach that
they could try out with the students. For this particular topic, the teachers reported

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 that it was now easier for them to teach and the students were able to answer the
question. In fact, questions on this topic became one of the popular choices of
questions answered during SPM by SS students. Previously, this topic was taught
at the end of the syllabus or skipped totally. In addition, teachers own
idiosyncrasies about certain mathematical concepts compounded the problem
further. For example, on significant digits, we found various interpretations and
presentation styles amongst the teachers.

(3) Alternative strategies - the textbook on its own was insufficient to present
various approaches in concept formulation and usually gave only one method to
solve problems. It was also limited in its presentations of three-dimensional
concepts and had to be supplemented with physical models and activities, for
example, in the topic of Spherical Geodesics, we suggested that teachers also used
models of globes that could be taken apart in slices along the longitudes and
latitudes. We had classified the different pedagogical approaches as follows:

(a) In considering concept formulation and presentation we focused on

aspects that included visualisation, the cognitive development from concrete to
abstract, from the specific to making generality and the use of examples to
reinforce concepts.

(b) The relationship between earlier concept and ideas or procedures and
current topic taught should be explicitly made during the lesson.

(c) To enhance manipulative skills, alternative manipulation procedures,

which we considered easier to follow, were suggested.

During the discussions, we also noted that the teachers were over dependent on
the textbook and had limited resources for reference. Amongst the main reasons for these
that they identified were, a heavy workload (teaching, in charge of extra curricular
activities, administrative work, extra classes outside schooling hours for weak students),
the pressure to finish the curriculum and poor administrative support in implementing
new ideas. We managed to finish the research well before the SPM. The SPM results for
1995 in mathematics for this particular group of students were better than previous years.

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Please refer to Appendix 2. This could be seen as a positive indicator in establishing a
good working relationship between researchers and teachers.

Conclusion
We had designed various schemes to overcome or minimise students'
misconceptions as well as improved upon the existing presentation of concepts based on
our own study and discussions with the teachers. Furthermore, we also devised
alternative teaching and problem solving strategies that added to the teachers' repertoire.
The teachers appreciated the frequent discussions held and the materials that were
compiled to help them in improving their teaching. The teachers requested that the
working relationship should be continued as they found that the discussions were
stimulating, kept them in touch with research development and gave them the
opportunities to contribute directly into mathematics educational research.
On our part, we felt that this collaboration allowed for a more efficient gathering
of data on teachers' classroom practice and students' learning difficulties, which then can
be analysed with other research findings. It also enabled the accumulated findings on
concept development and teaching strategies to be examined by the teachers with
immediate feedback, revised and then implemented.
References
1. DARMA, Z., Hussin and A.R., Kaprawi, (1995). Kajian Kesukaran Matematik 1449
Di Kalangan Pelajar Sekolah Menengah Sri Skudai dan Cadangan Kaedah
Mengatasinya Dari Aspek Pedagogi. (The Study of Mathematics 1449 Difficulties
Amongst the Students at Sri Skudai Secondary School and a Proposal on How to
Overcome these from Pedagogical Aspects), unpublished paper, Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia.
2. Liew Su Tim & Leow Soo Kar, (1992). Matematik, Tingkatan empat dan lima
(Mathematics for Fourth and Fifth Form). Edusystem Sdn. Bhd., Kuala Lumpur.
3. Orton, Anthony (1987). Learning Mathematics: Issues, Theory and Classroom
Practice, Cassell, London.
4. Razali, M.R. and Tall, D.O., (1993). Diagnosing Students' Difficulties in Learning
Mathematics. International Journal of Mathematics Education, Science and
Technology, 24(2), 209-220.

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