CHAPTER I

Introduction

A. Background of the Study

Mathematical knowledge is often difficult for learners to acquire (Kaminski,

Sloutski, & Heckler, 2009). Different approaches are used by teachers to transfer

knowledge during classroom teaching. Some of the approaches used in classroom

teaching enable learners to be proficient in mathematics. Mathematical proficiencies

are discussed by Kilpatrick, Swafford, and Findell (2001), who identified five strands

of mathematical proficiencies, which are not independent but represent different

aspects of a whole. The five strands are: conceptual understanding, procedural

fluency, strategic competence, adaptive reasoning, and productive disposition. The

strands identified are interwoven and interdependent (NCTM, 2001). They provide a

framework for discussing the knowledge, skills, abilities, and beliefs that constitute

mathematical proficiency. Skemp (1976) argues that it is not enough for a learner to

understand how to perform mathematical procedure, but also to know why a

particular task is performed.

In the K to 12 curriculum in the Philippines, one of the curricular offering in

STEM grade 11 for the first semester is Pre-Calculus. In this specialized subject, the

students must be able to apply concepts and solve problems involving conic sections,

systems of non-linear equations, series and mathematical induction, circular and

trigonometric functions, trigonometric identities and polar coordinate system. The aim

of learning pre-calculus for senior high school is surely success for some while

meeting the requirements for others. It does seem to be a fact of life that while a few

prosper in this learning area, a much greater number find it difficult. Hence, however

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successful a course may appear to be, there are students who begin to struggle and

who will need appropriate help to be able to pursue the subject further.

Research studies attribute some of learners’ difficulties with calculus problems

to weak understanding of functions and other related graphs (e.g DBE, 2014; DBE,

2015). Some learners’ difficulties are attributed simply to the procedures used when

practising the routine steps followed when solving calculus problems. Zachiarides et

al. (2007) argue that focusing on procedural understanding rather than conceptual

understanding when teaching calculus contributes towards learners’ difficulties in

dealing with calculus problems. Despite all the theories about learners’ difficulties in

solving calculus problems, there appears to be little attention given to finding the

derivatives of functions using first principles and rules of differentiation.

One of the reasons for the difficulties encountered in teaching and learning

calculus in secondary schools is that it is generally perceived to be abstract and

involving complex ideas (Zachiarides, Pamfilos, Christou, Maleev, & Jones, 2007);

moreover, learners do not comprehend the key concepts of calculus (Artique,

Batanero, & Kent, 2007). The focus in this study is on how learners solve problems

involving first principles and rules of differentiation.

Ferrini-Mundy & Gaudard (1992) listed some of the other difficulties students

encounter in the calculus, each worthy of extended investigation, including: restricted

mental images of functions, The Leibniz notation – a ‘useful fiction’ or a genuine

meaning, Difficulties in translating real-world problems into calculus formulation,

Difficulties in selecting and using appropriate representations, Algebraic manipulation

– or lack of it, Difficulties in absorbing complex new ideas in a limited time,

Difficulties in handling quantifiers in multiply-quantified definitions.

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 In this context, the researchers attempt to investigate the Difficulties of Grade

11 STEM Student in Pre-Calculus and to know why the Grade 11 students

encountered such difficulties.

B. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The research goal is to know the Difficulties Encountered by Grade 11 STEM

Students in Pre-Calculus. Specifically, the study seeks to answer the following:

1. What are the difficulties encounter by Grade 11 STEM Students in Pre-Calculus?

2. How do the Grade 11 STEM Students overcome such difficulties in Pre-Calculus?

3. How does overcoming such difficulties affected the performance of the Grade 11

STEM Students in Pre-Calculus?

C. SCOPE AND DELIMITATION

The researchers conducted the study to know the difficulties encountered by

Grade 11 Stem Students in Pre-calculus. This will be conducted to the three sections

of Grade 11 STEM Class in Tabuk City National High School with five participants

randomly selected from each section, summing up to fifteen participants. The process

of the interview is semi structured, it is to be administered one by one with the

participants.

D. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study should give knowledge to both of us researchers and participants.

The study should let the researchers know and realize the difficulties encountered by

Grade 11 STEM Students in Pre-calculus. It will be also helpful to understand why

the Grade 11 STEM Students encounter difficulties in Pre-calculus. This would

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 answer how these students handle such difficulties and how these difficulties affected

their performance in Pre-calculus. The study would benefit to the teachers as a basis

or guide for better teaching strategies on Pre-calculus.

E. DEFINITION OF TERMS

Coding is how you define what the data you are analyzing are about.

Conceptual understanding is when a learner is able to comprehend mathematical

concepts, operations, and relations (Kilpatrick et al., 2001; Watson & Sullivan, 2008).

Conducted is the way that a person behaves in a particular place or situation.

Corpus is a collection of written texts, especially the entire works of a particular

author or a body of writing on a particular subject.

Difficulties is the quality of something that makes it hard to do.

Ellipse is a bounded curve which looks like a flattened circle.

Encounter is to have or experience (problems and difficulties). To meet (someone)

without expecting or intending to.

Parabola is a symmetrical open plane curve formed by the intersection of a cone with

a plane parallel to its side.

Phenomenology is the study of the development of human consciousness and self-

awareness as a preface to or a part of philosophy.

Pre-calculus is a course of study in senior high schools taken as a prerequisite for the

study of calculus, usually involving advanced algebra and trigonometric functions.

Purposive sample is a non-probability sample that is selected based on characteristics

of a population and the objective of the study.

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Qualitative data is a type of data that describes information. It is investigate and also

often open-ended, allowing respondents to fully express themselves.

Sampling is the action or process of taking samples of something for analysis.

Semi-structured interview is a meeting in which the interviewer does not strictly

follow a formalized list of questions. They will ask more open-ended questions,

allowing for a discussion with the interviewee rather than a straightforward question

and answer.

Verbatim in exactly the same words as were used originally.

Visualization is well recognized as a powerful problem representation process for

solving mathematical problems

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 CHAPTER II

Methodology

A. Research Design

The research is a qualitative type. This study employed phenomenology

because it provided collection of the response of the research questions. The study

administered interviews to Grade 11 STEM Students who have experienced

difficulties in Pre-calculus.

B. Sampling and Instrumentation

A purposive type of sampling was used in the study to gather data. In this

manner, it is composed of Fifteen (15) participants which consist of Grade 11 STEM

Students of Tabuk City National High School who have experienced difficulties in

Pre-calculus.

C. Data Collection Method

The researchers utilized a semi-structured types of interview in getting the

needed information. The researchers prepared a list of open-ended interview questions

which was validated by experts in the field prior to the conduct of the study.

Permission to collect data for the purpose of the research was sought with a letter of

consent toward each participant and interview protocol was applied as lead to this

process. The interview will be conducted at Tabuk City National High School. The

participants were informed that the gathered set of information would be kept

confidential and be applied for the research purpose only.

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D. Data Analysis

The response from the interviews were transcribed into text. Transcribing

included making correct word-far-word text version of the contents of audio or videos

recordings. It also involved translation of the text from a native or local dialect into

English. The text or script were given codes. The code used were based from the

codes and key words taken from the tittle, research objective and from specific

questions such as difficulties that the Grade 11 STEM students encounter in Pre-

calculus and the primary codes were based on the emergency codes such as key words

or phrase found in the actual text. These codes were then categorized into meaningful

patterns and interpretation of the data for the significant themes that could shed

significance on the experiences of the participant.

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 CHAPTER III

Presentation of Findings and Discussions

This section provides the tabular presentation of the results of the study based on

content analysis and provide the details of discussion.

Table 1

To determine the difficulties that the Grade 11 STEM Students Encounter in Pre-

Calculus

Coding and Thematic Analysis Presented in the corpus part which includes the

collection of transcripts or verbatim responses,

translation as well as the identified coded and themes.

Responses In general, the difficulties that the Grade 11 STEM

students Encountered in Pre-Calculus are lack of time,

all the lessons in Pre-calculus, problems involving

trigonometric function, the explanation of their

previous teacher, memorizing a lot of formulas,

defining parabolas and ellipse and analyzing in solving

problems.

Example of verbatim responses are:

“Para sa akin lahat nahihirapan po, page-eliminate,

calculation and graphing. Para kinyak dagiyaya

difficult ngay ket dagiyay haan unay maiexplain jay

teacher mi although I explain nan ngem haan nga clear.

Para kinyak ket dagiyay exponent ngay tas fraction.

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 Translation:

For me all are difficult, elimination, calculation and

graphing. For me the difficulty is the explanation of

our teacher, although he explain but not clear. For me

is the exponent and fraction.

Themes The most remarkable theme to emerge from the data

are low of mathematical proficiency that’s include

conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, strategic

competence, adaptive reasoning and productive

disposition.

It is clear from the finding that most of the students answered a negative view

in encountering difficulties in Pre-calculus.

One difficulty encountered is lack of time because it was half-day session and

the daily time allotment for the subject is 40 minutes only. The time is very short in

the doing performance activities especially if the student is a slow learner or with a

low mathematical proficiency.

All the lessons in Pre-calculus, were very difficult because the students are not

good in math and they put in their mind that math is difficult. From the word math,

students told that math stand for mental abuse to human.

Another difficulty encountered is about the problems involving trigonometric

functions. These include to formulate and solve accurately situational problems

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involving circular functions, apply appropriate trigonometric identities in solving

situational problems, formulate and solve accurately situational problems involving

appropriate trigonometric functions and formulate and solve accurately situational

problems involving the polar coordinate system.

The explanation of their previous teacher is also a difficulty for the students.

Although the teacher is explaining but the explanations are not clear. When the

teacher teach or tackle a lesson it is so easy to understand like you knew the answer

and when the teacher started to write some examples it was very easy but when the

teacher gave a quiz or activity that’s where the struggle is.

Another difficulty is memorizing a lot of formulas. In the subject Pre-calculus

there are many formulas to memorize. Some of the students hate math and even hate

memorizing formulas.

Defining parabolas and ellipse is another difficulty encountered. Parabolas and

ellipse are under the lesson of Analytic Geometry. A parabola is one of the conic

sections. An ellipse is one of the conic sections that most students have not

encountered formally before, unlike circles and parabolas.

Most students also found difficulty in analyzing in solving problems. The

students had low skills in analysis especially that there are a lot of problem solving

activities in Pre-calculus.

The findings of this study is related to the findings of the study of Ferrini-

Munday & Guadard (1992) entitled, Preparation or Pitfall in the Study of College

Calculus, Journal for Research in Mathematics Education. They listed some of the

other difficulties of students encounter in the calculus, each worthy of extended

investigation, including: restricted mental images of functions, The Leibniz notation –

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a ‘useful fiction’ or a genuine meaning, Difficulties in translating real-world problems

into calculus formulation, Difficulties in selecting and using appropriate

representations, Algebraic manipulation – or lack of it, Difficulties in absorbing

complex new ideas in a limited time, Difficulties in handling quantifiers in multiply-

quantified definitions.

Findings were somewhat similar to the study of (Zachiarides, Pamfilos,

Christou, Maleev, & Jones, 2007) presented at the CETL-MSOR Conference on

Excellence in the Teaching and learning at the University of Birmingham with the

title Teaching introductory calculus: Approaching key ideas with dynamic software.

One of the reasons for the difficulties encountered in teaching and learning calculus in

secondary schools is that it is generally perceived to be abstract and involving

complex ideas moreover, learners do not comprehend the key concepts of calculus

(Artique, Batanero, & Kent, 2007). The focus in this study is on how learners solve

problems involving first principles and rules of differentiation.

P a g e | 11
Table 2

To determine how the students overcome such difficulties in Pre-calculus

Coding and Thematic Analysis Presented in the corpus part which includes the

collection of transcripts or verbatim responses,

translation as well as the identified coded and themes.

Responses In general, the students overcame such difficulties in

Pre-calculus through watching video tutorials on

YouTube, asking help from their teachers and

classmates who had a better understanding towards

the lesson and , improving study habits like reading

every lessons and memorizing all the formulas,

listening and staying focused to the discussion and try

to understand and solve in own.

Example of verbatim responses are:

“Jay agdamdamagak dagiyay past teacher ko tapos

ngay agdamdamagak dagiyay ka-classmate ku dayay.

Dagiyay agadal nga usto, surotem nga usto,

agdingngeg kasjay.”

Translation:

I asked my past teacher and I asked my classmate.

Study hard, follow and listen properly.

Themes Over all they were able to overcome such difficulties

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 by watching video tutorials, creating ideas and

guidelines for better understanding and to keep

studying.

Students overcame such through watching video tutorials on YouTube the

students can learn a lot. The video tutorial taught the students how to solve problems

in every topic or lesson. Video tutorials gave example and the students can relate to

examples provided.

Another approach on how these students overcame such difficulties is by

asking help from teachers and from classmates who had a better understanding

towards the lesson. If the students encountered difficulties, they approached their

classmates who can understand the lesson or the fast learners and had buddy-buddy

learning.

Improving study habit like reading every lessons and memorizing all the

formulas is one of the techniques to overcome such difficulties in Pre-calculus. The

students needed to study every lesson and memorized the formulas in order to

understand the lesson.

Listening and staying focused to the discussion is one of the strategies the

students did in order to overcome such difficulties. The student should stay focused to

the discussion and listen to the teacher’s discussion.

In order to overcome such difficulties, some students tried to understand and

solve by their own. The students tried to understand the lesson in their own, so that

they can answer even without asking help. This developed their independence in

learning.

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Table 3

To determine how does overcoming such difficulties affected the performance of the

Grade 11 STEM Students in Pre-calculus

Coding and Thematic Analysis Presented in the corpus part which includes the

collection of transcripts or verbatim responses,

translation as well as the identified coded and

themes.

Responses In general, overcoming such difficulties in Pre-

calculus has the following effects on the

performance of the Grade 11 STEM students:

having high scores and grade, it increased their self-

confidence and trust their own answers. It is easier

to cope with the lessons and solve problems

regarding the topic, became independent to answer,

it improved their mathematical ability and lessen the

problem of the students in school.

Example of verbatim responses are:

“Surely naghelp suna, mas na understand ku jy

lesson.”

Translation:

Surely it helped because I understand the lesson.

Themes The data shows that their performance is remarkable

great after hard work, perseverance and not giving

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 up, their low grades and scores became high and

their stress while coping such difficulties are now

null.

One effect of overcoming such difficulties was having high scores and grade.

When the students overcame such difficulties in pre-calculus their scores and grade

became high. When the students overcame those difficulties they can now answer and

solve in their own and their scores and grade were improved.

The performance of the students were affected in a good way. This situation

increased the student self- confidence and trust.

Students found it easier to cope up with the lessons and solve problems

regarding the topic when they overcame such difficulties.

Students became independent to answer. The student’s performances were

affected through becoming independent to answer every problems and quizzes. The

students did not copy the answers of their classmates, they stood in their own feet and

trust their own answers.

Overcoming such difficulties improved the mathematical ability of the

students. The students mathematical ability will improved because understood the

lesson and they solved in their own.

In overcoming such difficulties, the students’ problems in the school were

lessened. When they overcame the difficulties understood the lesson and cope up

from it. The students answered their assignments in pre-calculus without having stress

and problem.

P a g e | 15
 CHAPTER IV

Conclusion and Recommendation

This chapter presents the conclusion and recommendation on the findings of the study.

Conclusion

Difficulties in Pre-calculus has been natural to all students who belong to the STEM

Strand particularly in Tabuk City National High School where the interview was conducted.

It is important to know the difficulties that the STEM Students encountered in Pre-calculus,

how the students overcame such difficulties in Pre-calculus and how does overcoming such

difficulties affected their performance in Pre-calculus. We therefore conclude that:

 The difficulties that the Grade 11 STEM students Encountered in Pre-Calculus are

lack of time, all the lessons in Pre-calculus, problems involving trigonometric

function, the explanation of their previous teacher, memorizing a lot of formulas,

defining parabolas and ellipse and analyzing in solving problems.

 The students overcame such difficulties in Pre-calculus through watching video

tutorials on YouTube, asking help from their teachers and classmates who had a

better understanding towards the lesson and , improving study habits like reading

every lessons and memorizing all the formulas, listening and staying focused to the

discussion and try to understand and solve in own.

 Overcoming such difficulties in Pre-calculus has the following effects on the

performance of the Grade 11 STEM students: having high scores and grade, it

increased their self-confidence and trust their own answers. It is easier to cope with

the lessons and solve problems regarding the topic, became independent to answer, it

improved their mathematical ability and lessen the problem of the students in school.

P a g e | 16
 Recommendation

Based on the aforementioned conclusions, the following are hereby recommended:

 Classes should be whole day, not on a half day basis as to give ample time for

students to do their performance tasks for an in-depth understanding of the

competencies taught.

 Pre-calculus teachers and all other mathematics subject teachers especially those who

are not Education graduates should attend seminars, training and workshops to

improve their teaching strategies and pedagogies in order to address the learning

needs of students.

 Students should improve their study habits in order improve their skills in critical

thinking and problem solving to improve their performance in pre-calculus and other

related subjects.

 The findings of this study should be an eye-opener and a reference for teachers and

administrators to develop appropriate intervention strategies and materials to address

the difficulties of students in pre-calculus and other

 A similar study should be conducted by teachers and administrators but with a wider

scope and increased number of participants or respondents.

 The results of this study could be a reference for future researches who would like to

conduct a similar study.

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Ferrini-Mundi, J. & Gaudard, M. (1992). Preparation or Pitfall in the Study of College

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