Assessing Mathematical Thinking in Different Type of Primary Schools

Abstract

Mathematical thinking is an act of sense-making and rest on the processes of generalizing, specializing, convincing and conjecturing. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of mathematical thinking students in primary schools and whether there is any difference in the level of mathematical thinking of students from different types of school. The data was collected from 516 Year 4 students which are from 7 primary schools in the state of Terengganu, Johor, Kedah and Federal Territory. Data were collected using a paper-and-pencil test that were directly administered to the sample. The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Statistical software was used to compute the means (M) and corresponding standard deviations (sd). T-tests were also conducted to determine if there are any significant difference in the levels of mathematical thinking of the students according to the different types of schools. The descriptive analysis of the study revealed that primary school students have inadequate level of mathematical thinking (M= 15.25, sd=7.19) and only 2.5% of the students have achieved the adequate level of mathematical thinking based on the “cut off” score of 30.00. The study also found that the level of mathematical thinking of students from Sekolah Kebangsaan (M = 13.37, sd=6.85) was significantly different than level of mathematical thinking of students from Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (Cina) (M = 18.64, sd=1.63) with t (514) =-7.87, p< .05). The analysis further revealed that many students were not able to provide and justified reasoning for their decisions, were not able to make generalization based on the observation of patterns, were not alert that problems can have more than one solution, did not seek for other solutions and were contented with having only one solution.