Learning Difficulties in Mathematics (LDM) of Secondary School Students with respect to their Personal and Background Variables

Vol. 2 No. 4

Year: 2009

Issue: February-April

Title: Learning Difficulties in Mathematics (LDM) of Secondary School Students with respect to their Personal and Background Variables 

Author Name: Mahender Reddy Sarsani, Ravi Maddini 

Synopsis: 

The investigation was aimed to study the learning difficulties in mathematics among the secondary school students. The study proposed to measure the Learning Difficulties in Mathematics with respect to the students’ personal and background variables such as sex, type of school, locality and medium of instruction; and also to explore the relationships of learning difficulties with students’ scholastic achievement in mathematics and opinion on the different topics in mathematics. Survey method was adopted and developed three instruments for the study; they are Learning Difficulties in Mathematics (LDM), Mathematics Scholastic Achievement Test (MSAT) and Difficult Topics in Mathematics (DTM). A simple random sampling technique was employed in the selection of 480 students from government and private schools of Warangal district in Andhra Pradesh, India. The study revealed that boys had more Learning Difficulties in Mathematics than girls. It was also found that the students of Government schools, urban and Telugu medium have more learning difficulties in mathematics than their counterparts of private, rural and English medium respectively. Further, it was found that the students who have less learning difficulties in mathematics scored better in mathematics scholastic achievement test and found that the students those who have opined that the topics are easy in mathematics secured highest marks than their counterparts those who heave expressed the topics are average and difficult for them. Accordingly, the remedial measures and intervention programmes are suggested to enhance students’ performance and to minimise their learning difficulties.