Assisting Students of Sege Community Jhs One to Change Simple Fractions to Percentages.
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the study
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- What are the possible root causes of Sege Community JHS One (1) students’ difficulties in changing fractions into percentages
- What are the causes why students of Sege Community JHS One (1) are unable to change fractions into percentages?
- How will students of Sege Community JHS One (1) use 10X10 grids tochange fractions into percentages.
CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Chapter two includes both empirical and theoretical literature review. The theoretical literature explains the concepts underpinning this research and empirical literature explores the studies already conducted.
Chapter two of this study reviews literature related to the topic under the following sub- headings:
- Concept and mathematical concept
- Causes of students difficulties in changing simple factions to percentages, percentages, fractions to simple fractions
- Practical activities which can be used to teach the concept of changing simple fractions to percentage fractions and percentage fractions to simple
- Importance of using teaching and learning materials in the teaching of mathematics
Summary of literature review
Concept and Mathematical Concept
According to Wikipedia encyclopedia, a concept is a general idea derived from specific instance or occurrences. The implication of this is that a concept is something that could be formed in the mind which could represent a thought, an idea or a notion. A concept is a notion of idea(s) expressing how something might be done that may lead to an acceptable procedure.
Skemp (1989) notes that mathematical concepts are the mental images which result when we abstract from a number of examples, things which they have in common. Skemp continues to contend that primary concepts are built from our sensory experiences including senses of touch, taste, sight, hearing and smell. What this presupposes is that in the teachers attempt to explain any mathematical concept he or she should endeavor to use teaching and learning materials which will not only appeal to all the senses of students but also that make the concept more comprehensive and practical to the understanding, as well as those who draw from their previous experiences.
Paling (1986) also shares the same view with Skemp when he asserts “the understanding for new mathematical ideas or concepts start with practical real life experiences” which draws from the students previous knowledge and experiences. The implication of this assertion is that introducing any new mathematical concept or idea the teacher should start from the previous knowledge of the students, from known and unknown and even more, from concrete to abstract.
Causes of students’ difficulties in changing simple fractions to percentage fractions and percentage fractions to simple fractions
Dictionary.com defines the word “Difficult” as “not easily or readily done, requiring much labour, skill or planning to be performed successfully”. The implication is that a difficult task requires much labour. So also a difficult subject requires much labour and skill before one can judiciously understand.
According to Martin (1994) students have difficulties in finding rules for converting simple fractions to percentage fractions and percentage fractions to simple fractions. Martin continues to stress that the situation is further compounded when the students are in dilemma as to which mathematical operation (say multiplication, addition division and subtraction) is required when trying to use proportion to change fractions to percentage fractions and vice versa.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
Introduction
Chapter three of the studies consists of methods and procedures used in data collection. It is captured under the following sub-headings, including research design, population of the study, sample and sampling.
Research Design
Saumure and Given (2008) define research design as a specific framework that undergirds any research work. The researcher went through the study by way of participatory action research design. Patton (1990) explain action research design as the type of research that begins with the identification of a problem (usually problem under class room situation), addressing the problem with practical and qualitative strategies with the view to improve upon the situation or a particular practice.
The research concords with the above views because the researcher thinks going through this study by way of action research design, she will be able to help JHS One (1) students of Sege Community JHS change fractions to percentage fractions and percentage fraction to simple fractions.
Population of the study
Population is described as the group of interest to the researcher in research work. Also from the ordinary man’s idea, population is the total number of people living in a particular place at a particular time. In all and as much as research is concern of population, is a target group from which fact and information are gathered for a study. The target population of this project work is the JHS One (1) students of Sege Community JHS in the Greater Accra Region. The class has a total number of forty (40) of which twenty-five (25) are boys and fifteen (15) are girls. But due to limited research materials available for the study the researcher has to select from the total population for the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
Introduction
This chapter presents results of the study, analysis and findings. The results are presented using frequency tables, pie charts and bar graph. Descriptive analysis was used to discuss the tables. The findings were discussed in accordance with the research questions.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
Chapter five of the study presents the summary, conclusion and recommendations. This section is often based on the findings discussed in the fourth chapter.
Summary
The study was conducted at Sege Community JHS with a population of forty (40) students but a sample size of 20 students with equal genders. The researcher noticed that students had difficulty in changing simple fractions to percentage fractions and vice versa during her course of teaching. The purpose of the research was to help JHS One (1) students of Sege Community JHS overcome the difficulty in changing fractions to percentages and vice versa using 10×10 grid and percentage chart. Some methods and practical activities were employed to enhance students’ mathematics skills, especially inability to change fractions to percentages and vice versa.
To a greater extent, it seems students were not interested in mathematics and therefore, did not see the need to participate fully in class activities. Teachers did not make any conscious effort to help improve students’ participation in class through the use of good teacher- student relationship.
Review of related literature was based on works of various authors, educationists and authorities on changing fractions to percentages. The changes used for the study was action research. The design was deemed suitable for the study because it helps to design an appropriate teaching and learning material (10 x10 grid and percentage charts) to help students overcome their difficulties in changing fractions to percentages. The researcher used purposive sampling techniques to select twenty (20) students for the study.
Observation, interview and test were the main instruments used for the collection of data for this study. As a result of students’ problem in changing simple fractions to percentage fractions, the researcher developed and used teaching and learning materials (10 x 10 grid and percentage charts) at the intervention stage.
The results and the scores from the pre-test and post-test were systematically presented in tables and graphs using descriptive data analysis. Among the findings, the study revealed that students’ inability to change fractions to percentages were as follows:
- Students’ inability to study at home
- Socio-economic status of students influence students’ ability to understand
- Inappropriate use of teaching and learning materials by
However, the study also revealed that students performed better when they were taught systematically with relevant teaching and learning materials with different methods.
Conclusion
After the implementation of the interventional strategies, it was observed that there was 95% improvement in the students’ abilities in changing simple fractions to percentage fractions and percentage fractions to simple fractions, which goes to buttress the point that the interventional strategies put in place by the researcher were effective in assisting the students in understanding the concept of fractions.
Recommendations
The finding of the study point out that most teachers do not use TLMs and practical activities as well as materials from the students’ environment in teacher mathematical concepts. The researcher’s recommendation for teachers is therefore, based on the fact that regardless of the nature of the mathematics topic, teachers should always use TLMs in their teaching. The teaching and learning materials should also involve equipment, tools and materials that are commonly found from the student’s natural environments.
The results of the study also found that there are some teachers in the educational area of the G.E.S. who still use instrumental methods of teaching, forcing the students to memorize rules and thereby learning by rote. The researcher’s advice is that, G.E.S. should organize persistent in-service or on-the-job training for their employees. During these trainings, teachers should be taught not only how to prepare and use TLMs, but also they should be taught practical ways of tapping the students’ informal experiences that the students bring from home to the school.
The study additionally reveals that the use of practical activities such as 10 x 10 grid activities as well as percentage charts can be helpful in teaching the concepts of changing fractions to percentages and fraction percentages to simple fractions. The researcher is further suggesting the appropriate use of these strategies in teaching the concept of fractions. Policy makers could also incorporate this into the primary school curriculum.
Finally, the researcher suggests a further research into the role that games and heredity play in the mathematical development of the JHS student and a replication of how the socio- economic status of students’ families influence their mathematical development.
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