Improving the reasoning skills of students to overcome learning difficulties in additional mathematics

Abstract

Reasoning skills are one of the primary components of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) that students must become proficient atas stipulated in the Malaysian Education Blueprint (MEB) 2012-2025.In order to view the learning difficulties of the Differentiation topic, which is related to the weakness of reasoning that is experienced by students, the researchers conducted a preliminary study to get an overview of the weakness in mathematical reasoning, which is among the main causes of the decline of students' performance in learning Mathematics of analytical character (Differentiation, for instance). The research participants consisted of 30 students who were selected through purposive sampling at a secondary school in Johor.The study findings showed that the proficiency level of students' reasoning skills in the Differentiation topic was generally weak (40%) and moderate (53.33%) and good only 6.67%. One-way ANOVA showed a significant mean difference between the students' reasoning levels, according to the Additional Mathematics performance in the Differentiation topic amongst students with good, average and poor performance. Through the post hoc test, the mean difference of the students' reasoning level was between the average and poor performances. Therefore, students with moderate and weak performance would need a good reasoning level to improve their performance in Additional Mathematics in the topic of Differentiation. This shows that the topic of Differentiation is a difficult topic, and it is important for researchers to help the students to enhance their thinking skills, especially in providing an effective argument based on clear evidence so that students could well understand and master the Differentiation topic.