CHAPTER 1

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Introduction

There are many applications of logarithms concepts to real life (Siti Khadijah, 2010).

Logarithm topic has been taught in Malaysian Additional Mathematics Form 4 syllabus in

chapter 5. Although it is consists of two subtopics, but students still trying to score and

understand in this topic. This topic is considered as one of the difficult topics in Additional

Mathematics (Chua, 2005).This topic is full with rules and formulas; it made students

become more confused and made mistakes when answering the question. According to

Webber (2002) most learners defined logarithmic and exponential function as an action and

process of exponentiation while generalization is the output that is gained from exponential

expressions. Learners able to indicated that exponentiation is in terms of action and process,

which are the ones who can compute Cy as C times y and when they keep on doing this, they

defined that action as the process (Dubinsky, 1991).

Chua (2005) explained that the student understands towards logarithms is importance

and it reflect on the errors made by students. Therefore, this study was carried out with the

aims of examine students’ competency level and learning logarithmic and also to investigate

the types of errors students’ made. Therefore, this study is necessary to conduct to help math

teachers to get the insight in teaching students in logarithmic topic so they prepare to

upgrading their teaching skills related to every error and misconception that been done by

their students in this particular topic.

1.1 Background of the Study

Mathematical function are the most essential part of concept that is adapted in

mathematics school curricular and should be taught with deep understanding (Curriculum and

Assessment Policy Statement, 2012). According to the National Council of Teacher of

Mathematics, the most hardest part to be learned by students and explained effectively by

teacher are the function form topics.

In Malaysian educational system, the process of learning mathematics helps to train

student’s mind to think logically, compared things mathematically and able to solve problem

systematically with effective decision making skills. With that, student’s level of

understanding and mastery towards mathematical concept is really important in order to

produce more intellectual students that can solve problems using cognitive skills. Abide by

the objective of mathematics curricular KBSM which state that:

 “…… to produce students that able to understand about a certain concept and besides

that can conquer the basic skills based on the particular subject”.

(The objective of Mathematics Curricular KBSM )

The person who first introduced logarithms was John Napier (1550 – 1617) in 1614

(Rafael, 2008). He developed the new knowledge with uses of logarithms that shortened time

to do extensive and complex calculations. Logarithmic function is the most crucial concepts

that play an important role in contributing branches of mathematics in our life. Logarithmic

topic is full with formula. Students are capable to doing general calculations but they less

capable when it comes to higher levels of cognitive thinking. In order to solve the question,

students have to understand and remember the concept and the formula of logarithmic to

solve it.

Based on past experience, observation and reading of other researchers, the topic of

logarithmic is the topic most students made mistakes and less to score. Most of the students

get confused on using the variety form of formula and concept in this chapter. And because

of that, students tend to make mistakes in answering this particular topic question in exam.

Thus, teachers really need to pay extra attention towards student’s level of understanding on

the logarithmic topic.

 This situation that has been occurring from the past decades until now has been the

trigger researcher to identify the reason why the students make mistakes in working with

logarithms topic. There are a lot of factors that contributed towards student’s perception and

lack of understanding regarding the difficulties of logarithmic topic. In student’s side, the

factors involved are the lack of motivation to study, lack of confidence in learning math, less

passion and language barrier to understand the topic. On teacher’s side, the factors that lead

to lack of understanding in students are because of the teacher’s attitude when teaching, the

unsuitable and irrelevant pedagogy and approach used by teacher in teaching and teacher’s

role in teaching. These factors really play an important role in contributing the lack of

understanding of students in logarithmic topic. In this study, we will analyze the student’s

competency level in learning logarithmic and investigate students’ errors in working with

logarithm.

In this research, we hope that students can detect the common mistakes made by them

when answering this logarithmic topic and teacher can find a transformation teaching

approach to reduce the mistakes and level of low understanding students towards logarithmic

function topic.
1.2 Statement of the Problems

Mathematics nowadays really play an important role in helping students daily life

application and in the future helps students to get into the path of which level is suitable for

careers related to science and technology. All mathematics aspect is involving problem

solving and thinking process. Problem solving is regarded as the interaction of cognitive

process and mental representation in diverse ways and it is a complex activity (Green &

Gilhoolly, 2005, p. 347).

Several studies have shown that students actually are having difficulties in

understanding this logarithm topic. This topic is full with formula and concept that make

students even more confused on how to apply it on question given. Students that often make

errors in logarithms often have problems in their level understanding related to the topic

which implies knowing about their mathematical thinking and mental constructions. This

study was interested in the errors that students make; it is befitting to look at what it means to

understand the question given by using a particular order, what it means to understand

logarithms and how students get the insight about this fairly elusive concept. Students

shouldn’t memorize all the steps to solve question on logarithm function or even remember

one by one all the logs rule and formulas. They actually need to understanding towards the

basic concept so they will manage to answer the questions easily.

 In general, this study is conducted to know the common mistakes or error that is made

by the students so we can help students to improve their level of understanding on logarithm

function. Besides, we can help to enhance students to think creatively and critically when

answering the particular topic. As most of the students have low confidence and anxiety

towards math, we think by knowing deeply the type of error that they usually make can help

them to endure those negative feeling away by providing them an alternative way and

explanation regarding the logarithm topic .

Nowadays, there is great concern about the students’ performance in Mathematics.

Teachers often stated that the performance of the students in Mathematics rather poor and

declining in Malaysia. Therefore, by conducting this research we can help the teacher as their

guideline which helps them to transform their teaching approach and teach well in logarithm.

It also helps students to score well in logarithm topic and Additional Mathematics too.
1.3 Purposes and Objectives of Study

The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between mistakes made by

students in answering logarithm question with the level of the students of understanding on

this particular topic and the transformation of teaching approach that can be used to overcome

students from repeating the same mistakes in answering logarithm questions.

There are two objective of the study. The objectives are:

i) To examine students’ competency level in learning logarithmic.

ii) To investigate students’ errors in logarithm.

1.4 Research Questions

The main questions being asked in this study were:

1. What are the students’ competency levels in all subtopics of logarithms?

2. What are the errors made by the students in solving logarithms?

 3. Does the error and mistakes made by students reflect to their level of competency in

this logarithmic function topic?

1.5 HYPOTHESIS OF STUDY

According to the research question that was developed earlier, there are some hypothesis that

been proposed. The research hypotheses are:

Research question 2:

Hₒ= there is no difference between the type of error and misconception faced by

students and the student’s level of competency towards learning logarithm.

H1= there is difference between the type of error and misconception faced by

students and the student’s level of competency towards learning logarithm.

1.6 Significance of the Study

 Many researchers have been investigating the mistakes made by students’ in

logarithm. Hence, this study is conducted since students always said that the logarithm topic

is hard to understand and to score in exam. Therefore, by conducting this study we hope that

it would helps the students detect their mistakes and improve more in logarithm topic. Not

only that, by focusing on student’s common mistakes too, students can see what issue are

they dealing and find a way to solve that problem. They can see their careless attitude,

misconception problems, lack of motivation to study in math and many more. With this,

students will never repeat the same mistakes anymore in the future. According to Killpatrick

(1985), Garafalo and Lester (1982) and Tall (1991), they said that teacher should developed

an interesting and effective pedagogy in classroom so that students can understand the lesson

better. Therefore, we hope that by conducting this study, teacher can improve their ways of

teaching and learning process to decrease students’ mistakes in working with logarithm

topics.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

This study is to determine the students’ mistakes made in logarithm topic among Form Five

students from four secondary schools in Johor. The schools are SM Sains Muar, SMK Tun

Aminah, SMK Datuk Menteri and SMK Tun Ismail. This research use survey approach on

200 students, each school represent 50 students from Form Five who take additional

mathematics. The findings cannot be directly represented to all form 5 students in Malaysia.

The small sample size does not have the statistical support for conclusive results of for

generalizing the finding of this study. Other than that, we have no clear proof whether they
give their response based on their understanding or memorizing the step of doing the

problems related to logarithm topic.

1.8 Definition of Terms

In this research, there are several term that we need to understand before further study were

conducted.

1.8.1 Misconception

Misconception is fault thinking or facts that are wrong or mistaken. Mazur (1996)

reports his students’ performed badly on tests of conceptual understanding although they

success in memorizing equations and the skills of problem solving. Misconception comes

from the mis- that means bad or wrong and the word conception mean idea or act of

conceiving. In more simple explanation, misconception is incorrect thinking of the facts and

makes them give the wrong explanation.

Teachers need to learn that even with their good hard work in teaching; students may

not really understand the fundamental ideas covered in class. Although if one of the best

student give the right answers but are only answers it with what they remembered in class.

This can be done when we as teacher try to questioned more closely, these students will fail

to understand completely the basic concepts. Students are able to use algorithms to solve

numerical problems without understanding completely the basic concepts.

1.8.2 Error

Error is a mistake or a wrong interpretation about the knowledge received. In others words

error also a deviation from accuracy or correctness. Error occurs when the students made

mistake in answering the question given or explanation that being asked. According to John

Locke, knowledge is not the fault of our error, but mistakes of our judgment giving acquiesce

to that which is not true.

1.8.3 Formula

Formula is a unique type of equation that shows the relationship between different

variables. In other words, formula is a mathematical relationship or rule that can be show in

symbols form. There is many types of formula in mathematics and the formula is different for

every topics. For example the formula of area is different with the formula in logarithms. The

students need to understanding and know when to using the formula in the given questions.

Not all formula will be using in the problems given. So better understanding about the

formula of mathematics is important so the students will not making an error when answering

mathematics problems.