Philippine E-Journals

M2S3: MATH MYTHS AND STUDENTS’ STUDY STRATEGIES

Dyanika S. Paray

 

Abstract:

The study aimed at investigating the level of agreement of students on math myths and how this affects their study strategies. This has been realized so that concerned members of the academe will be able to strategize in correcting students’ beliefs in math myths and helping them improve their study strategies. The study involved 157 college freshmen students. Findings showed that the student-respondents of College of Information Technology and Computing Sciences

(CITCS) for the SY 2014 – 2015 were dominated by females, with ages 16 – 17, and graduates of public high schools. The respondents generally agreed to math myths and manifested good study strategies. Male respondents perceived math as less boring than female respondents. Students who came from private schools believed that math does not involve imagination or creativity. Males had a better strategy of finding a specific place to study math while females were found to take the full amount of time during tests. Student-respondents with ages 16 – 17 strategized more on finding a study place with few distractions and keeping a log of errors when tests were returned than those students with ages 18 – 19. Students with ages 18 – 19 had a more favorable approach on taking practice tests than the older ones. Private school graduate respondents had a better strategy on using flashcards for formulae and vocabularies than those respondents who graduated from public schools. Sex, age, and type of school did not influence students’ agreement to math myths and their study strategies. As the level of agreement of one student in math myths went stronger, his strategies towards studying math became better.