International Symposium on Mathematical Sciences and Computing Research 2013 (iSMSC 2013)

6-7 December 2013, Perak, MALAYSIA. Paper ID.:ST _05

Students’ Perception Towards Mathematics :

Attitudes, Interest And Lecturers’ Teaching
Siti Farah Haryatie Mohd Kanafiah, Azlina Jumadi
Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences
Universiti Teknologi MARA
Johor, Malaysia
sitif315@johor.uitm.edu.my

Abstract— The aim of this study was to examine the level of
students’ attitude and interest in Mathematics, students’
perception on their Mathematics lecturer and Mathematics
subject itself. This study also determined the relationship
between students’ perception on Mathematics and their
Mathematics performance. There were 150 students out of 189
students taking Calculus I on Semester December 2012 until Mac
2013 at UiTM Cawangan Johor involved in the survey. The
questionnaire (α=0. 774) was developed and administered to the
respondents. The data collected were analyzed using inference
methods (Pearson correlation and t-test) by using a Statistical
Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 for Windows.
Data analysis indicated that the level of students’ perception on
Mathematics subject from both computer sciences and
Mathematics students were high. The result shows that there was
a negative linear and a moderate significant correlation between
students’ perception on Mathematics and their Mathematics
result.
Keywords- Attitude; Interest; Students’ perception; Mathematics
achievement; Lecturers’ teaching
I. INTRODUCTION
Attitude is an internal matter and difficult to understand.
Attitude plays an important role to achieve the target in many
things. When a person fails in their life, many people said that
he probably has a bad attitude. In school, the teachers often
state that the failure rate in subjects relates to the negative
attitude such as laziness.
As in [1], the students' performance in certain subjects
depends on their attitude towards the subject. Positive attitude
towards the subjects will encourage a person to learn the
subject much better.
According to [2], students' attitudes need to be fostered
throughout the process of teaching and learning in order to
have a good achievement. The ability of students to use the
knowledge is a measure of the effectiveness of teaching and
learning processes. A positive attitude can motivate students‘
critical thinking, being active in the classroom, working
together in groups, improve interaction and communication
skills.
In a study conducted by [3] have found that the interest has
a positive influence on student achievement in Mathematics.
This can be seen from the dedication and efforts of students in
learning Mathematics. Besides, the survey from [4] found that
it should probably be differentiated between a general interest
in Mathematics and an interest in mathematical activities which
go beyond the level of calculations and simple algorithms. The
high interest in a particular subject also influences the level of
student achievement and will encourage students to study in
depth [5].
Teaching style used in the process of teaching and learning
has a significant impact on students' interest and understanding
of a subject. Lecturers‘ teaching is one of the factors to
determine students‘ achievement in a subject [6]. In another
survey, [7] states the appearance and presentation styles of
teaching and learning play an important role in efforts to
enhance students' understanding. When the students‘
perception of their teachers‘ is low, students‘ attitude towards
Mathematics tends to be negative as stated in [8] .
The lecturers and students should cooperate each other in
teaching and learning process. The lecturers should try their
best to educate the students. In order to encourage the students
to practice their preferred learning approach, a conducive
environment needs to be implemented by the lecturer. The
lecturers also should put in effort to increase the use of
materials and teaching aids to make the process of learning
easily understood. [9, 10] .
The findings of the study conducted by [11] found that
students‘ perception of teachers‘ knowledge of subject matter,
attitude to work and teaching skills has a significant
relationship to students‘ academic performance.
II. PROBLEM OF THE STUDY
There are a lot of students are not able to apply
mathematical concepts and skills they have learned during
their study. The difficulties of students to understand the basic
concepts will affect mathematical learning. What are the
criteria used by a student in learning Mathematics? Therefore,
this study had been conducted to see whether the students‘
perception of Mathematics will contribute the high percentage
of failure rate or not.

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 International Symposium on Mathematical Sciences and Computing Research 2013 (iSMSC 2013)
6-7 December 2013, Perak, MALAYSIA. Paper ID.:ST _05

In UiTM Cawangan Johor, Calculus I is a compulsory B. Population and Sample

subject for student of Diploma In Quantitative Science
(CS113) and Diploma In Computer Science (CS110). Based
on the final exam analysis results, there were 70 % ( 75 out of
107) of computer science students and 19.5 % ( 16 out of 82)
of Mathematics students failed Calculus I. According to the
high failure rate, this paper concern to investigate the
perception of students to their Mathematics lecturer, the
students‘ attitude and their interest towards a Mathematics
subject.
A. Research Question
This research was carried out to answer the following
question:
1. What is the level of students‘ attitude and interest
towards the Mathematics subject between computer
sciences and Mathematics‘ students?
2. How does students‘ perception of their lecturers‘
teaching ability?
3. What is the relationship between students‘ perception
towards Mathematics and their Mathematics result?
III. METHODOLOGY
The study was conducted using a survey method. A
structured questionnaire was given to all diploma students in
Computer Science and Mathematics taking Calculus 1 in
UiTM Cawangan Johor. This study is descriptive research that
aims to describe a phenomenon that is happening.
A. Conceptual framework
INTEREST
The population of the research consisted of all full time
diploma students in computer sciences (107) and quantitative
science (82) at UiTM Cawangan Johor. There were 150
students (Computer Science=87 and Quantitative Science=63)
out of 189 students taking Calculus I on Semester December
2012 until Mac 2013 involved in the survey. The size of the
sample was determined based on Krejcie and Morgan formula
[12].
C. Instrument
The research instrument was a questionnaire consisting of
two parts, Part A and Part B. Part A requested biographical
information regarding gender, age, field of study and
Mathematics subjects taken in semester December 2012 –
March 2013. Part B consisted of 36 questions. The set of
questionnaire with 36 items included the following: attitudes,
interests and lecturers‘ teaching is based on a 5 point Likert
scale. (See Table 1). Positive items were rated from strongly
agree (5), agree (4), neutral (3), disagree (2) and strongly
disagree (1) while negative items were scored in the reverse
order.
The Cronbarch Alpha test was used to determine the
reliability index of the instrument. The Cronbarch Alpha for
the instrument is 0.77 showed that items are consistent and
reliable [13].
TABLE I. DISTRIBUTION OF ITEMS BASED ON DOMAIN
DOMAIN NO. OF ITEM ALPHA
VALUES,

ATTITUDE 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 0.80

STUDENTS‘ MATHEMATICS INTEREST 13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24 0.50

PERCEPTION ATTITUDE RESULT

LECTURERS‘ 25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36 0.77

TEACHING

LECTURERS‘
TEACHING D. Mathematics Result
Information on Mathematics results will base on their
diploma final examination results. It was collected from their
Figure 1 : Students‘ perception and Mathematics result.
academic records in the University. The following are the
Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework of students‘ categorical result obtain by the students.
perception and Mathematics result. There are three
components of students‘ perception which are interest, attitude TABLE II. RESULT INDICATOR
and lecturers‘ teaching. This study will examine the Students’ result Level
correlation between Mathematics result of Computer Science A+ Very good
and Mathematics students and their perceptions of A, A– Good
B+, B, B– Credit
Mathematics subject. C+, C Pass
C–, D+, D, E, F Fail

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 International Symposium on Mathematical Sciences and Computing Research 2013 (iSMSC 2013)
6-7 December 2013, Perak, MALAYSIA. Paper ID.:ST _05

E. Data Analysis B. Students’ Perception on Lecturers’ Teaching

Data collected were analyzed using Pearson‘s Product- Table 4 shows the mean value of students‘ perception of
Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) to measure the strength their lecturers‘ teaching ability among CS110 and CS113
and direction of the relationship between students‘ perception students.
and Mathematics result. Besides, t-test was used to determine
the level of students‘ attitude and interest and the perception TABLE IV. STUDENTS‘ PERCEPTION ON LECTURERS‘ TEACHING AMONG
of their lecturers‘ teaching ability. CS110 AND CS113 STUDENTS

Domain Mean SD t-value df p-

Score value
IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The findings of this study were mainly based on the CS110 4.16 0.34 0.45 148 0.459
quantitative data gathered from the respondents using a CS113 4.19 0.38
developed set of questionnaires.
A. The Level of Students’ Attitude and Interest Towards Based on table 4, the results indicate that the mean score for
Mathematics CS110 and CS113 students‘ perception of their lecturers‘
Table 3 shows the mean value of two domains (interest and teaching was 4.16 and 4.19 respectively with standard
attitude) between CS110 and CS113. deviation (CS110) = 0.34 and (CS113) = 0.38. This means that
the level of students‘ perception is high for both programs. The
TABLE III. LEVEL OF ATTITUDE AND INTEREST AMONG CS110 AND results also reveal no significant differences between CS110
CS113 STUDENTS and CS113 students‘ perception on their lecturer (p-
value=0.459).
Domain Mean SD t-value df p-
Score value This result is in line with other study [3] and shows that the
Attitude lecturer must have a deep understanding of the contents by
CS110 3.64 0.41 3.78 148 0.99 topic they are teaching. This will lead the best explanation
CS113 3.90 0.41
which the concepts can be easily understood by the students.
Interest
CS110 3.55 0.40 5.26 148 0.22
CS113 3.92 0.47 C. The Relationship Between Students’ Perception and
Mathematics result
The main objective of the study is to identify whether there
Indicator for mean score:
was a significant relationship between students‘ perception
Very high – 4.21 until 5.00 towards Mathematics and Mathematics result of Computer
High – 3.41 until 4.20 Science and Mathematics students in UiTM Cawangan Johor.
Moderate – 2.61 until 3.40
Weak – 1.81 until 2.60 TABLE V. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENTS‘ PERCEPTION AND
Very weak – 1 until 1.8 MATHEMATICS‘ RESULT
Source: Quek Miow Leng (2006), [3]
Mathematics Result
Based on table 3, the results indicate that the mean score for
Perceptions Pearson Correlation, r -0.496
CS110 students‘ attitude and interest was 3.64 and 3.55
respectively and CS113 students‘ attitude and interest were Sig. (2 tailed) 0.000*
3.90 and 3.92 respectively (standard deviation (attitude) = 0.41 *p < 0.01
for both programs and interest = 0.40 for CS110 and 0.47 for
CS113). Means that the level of the student‘s attitude is high Indicator
for both programs. The results also reveal no significant
differences between CS110 and CS113 students‘ for both Very high – 0.91 until 1.0
students‘ attitude and interest (p-value(attitude)=0.99, p- High – 0.71 until 0.9
Moderate – 0.41 until 0.7
value(interest)=0.22). Weak – 0.21 until 0.4
Very weak – 0.00 until 0.2
Overall, the students‘ attitude and interest towards the Source: Quek Miow Leng (2006), [3]
Mathematics subject for both programs is good that is in line
with other studies elsewhere [1] and [5]. This is probably
because when students work in a group, they feel they can Table 5 displays the Pearson Product Moment correlation
depend on others for help and therefore increase their between Students‘ perception and Mathematics result. The
confidence in solving Mathematics problem. result (r = -0.496, p > 0.01) shows that there was a negative
linear and a moderate significant relationship in students‘
perception. This may be due to CS110 students are not

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 International Symposium on Mathematical Sciences and Computing Research 2013 (iSMSC 2013)
6-7 December 2013, Perak, MALAYSIA. Paper ID.:ST _05
interested in Mathematics and did not like to do more exercise
in Mathematics subject.
V. RECOMMENDATION
This study was conducted only to the students of UiTM
Cawangan Johor and randomly selected samples of male and
female students. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized
to all Computer Science and Mathematics diploma students in
other campus, since it's not proportionate to respective
populations.
Further research could be conducted to investigate on the
aspects of student learning styles, skills and learning strategies,
lecturers‘ perception towards students and level of satisfaction
with the environment. In addition, future studies could perhaps
improve the generalizability by using larger samples from
different campuses throughout Malaysia.
VI. CONCLUSION
The results of this study found that the students' perception
towards Mathematics is very high and encouraging. These
shows the students‘ attitude, interest and lecturers‘ teaching are
an insignificant factor in contributing the lower results in
Mathematics. This could be caused by other factors such as the
existence of a weak mathematical foundation or entry
requirements to university level should be examined in depth.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research has been supported by Excellent Fund Universiti
Teknologi MARA (UiTM).
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