Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents the conceptual and research

literature essential to the present study. These literature and

studies are related to the current investigation as to its concepts,

respondents, methodology and findings that supported the

present study.

Conceptual Literature

Foreign

Mathematical Proficiency of Education Students. One

of the critical aspects of a mathematics teacher’s work is

analyzing learners’ mathematical work. Mathematics tasks can

prompt the development of different students’ mathematical

abilities, and it is of relevance to address the various promoted

skills when assessing students’ mathematical work. However,

this is a challenging task, given that students’ work is commonly

based on procedural knowledge, which is only one of the skills

students can work on. Observing students’ work on

mathematical proficiency, teachers are able to acknowledge

students’ mathematical abilities, address students’ difficulties,

assist students’ knowledge development and, as a consequence,

plan and structure their classes and activities focused on

students’ needs (Killpatrick et al., 2018).

 To help students who are experiencing a low level of

mathematical proficiency, teachers should use explicit and

simple instructions. They must teach using a clear and concise

math language. They are also expected to utilize concrete,

pictorial, and virtual representations in teaching mathematical

concepts, processes and skills. They must provide the step-by-

test instructions on solving word problems. Lastly, teachers must

incorporate various mathematical activities as one way to build

mathematical fluency among students (Fuchs et. al., 2021).

The Standards for school mathematics describe the

mathematical understanding, knowledge, and skills that students

should acquire from pre-kindergarten through grade 12. Each

Standard consists of two to four specific goals that apply across

all the grades. The five Content Standards each encompass

specific expectations, organized by grade bands are Number and

Operations, Algebra, Geometry, Measurement, and Data Analysis

and Probability. The five Process Standards are described

through examples that demonstrate what each standard looks

like and what the teacher’s role is in achieving it. These are

problem-solving, reasoning and proof, communication,

connections and representation (National Council of Teachers of

Mathematics, 2020).
 The mathematical proficiency of math education students

of Khairun University are presented in Calculus, and given the

opportunity for students to understand the problems provided

both from the theoretical aspects related to indicators of

mathematical proficiency. The results showed that the ability of

the mathematical proficiency of students of mathematics

education in the medium category. (Hamid et al., 2020).

According to Baidoo (2019), Fractions are notoriously

difficult for students to understand and continue to pose a critical

challenge for learners in South Africa. Due to deficient mastery of

prerequisite concepts. One of the topic areas that learners

display numerous errors in in Mathematics is fractions. Research

indicates that learners have difficulties with operations involving

the addition, subtraction, division and multiplication fractions.

One hypothesis reason for this difficulty is that students have

memorize procedural rules and techniques for dealing with

fractions without developing a corresponding conceptual

understanding of fraction magnitudes, which makes many

operational rules appear meaningless.

Locale

Mathematical Proficiency of Education Students.

Students in the Philippines remain among the world’s

weakest in math, new findings by the Program for International

Student Assessment (PISA) showed, with recent test scores

showing no significant improvement from the country’s

performance in 2018. (Chi, 2023).

Askew., et al (2019) highlighted that teachers'

mathematical knowledge is one of the most commonly

recognized talents in the worldwide community. Educators must

comprehend mathematics as a combination of both the style of

understanding and the manner of thinking required by students

in order for reasoning to occur.

According to Anzaldo (2021), it is important to determine

the experiences of teachers in order to ensure upliftment of the

mathematics competencies of the students, which were

previously identified by the Trends in International Mathematics

and Science Study result in 2019 as rank 58th out of 58

participating countries (TIMSS, 2019).

According to Bautista (2021), language problems often

arise as a cause for poor performance in mathematics, what is

not clear is whether lack of English language proficiency is the

main reason for Filipino children’s poor problem-solving

performance. Problem solving for them is likewise hard for

sometimes they cannot rightly figure out nor illustrate what is

really asked. Translation of verbal sentence to mathematical

sentence is a weakness by majority of them.

 Student errors in comprehending the given problem are

consistent. They found that students have difficulties

communicating mathematical ideas and errors in converting

problem sentences into mathematical models. This indicates that

students struggle to understand the problem sentences and

convert them into mathematical languages (Maulyda, 2020).

Research Literature

Foreign

Mathematical Proficiency of Education Students. According

to Asmida et al., (2018), there are several recommendations for

related parties. Teachers should improve the quality of teaching

in the classroom by regularly creating teaching methods and

strategies to improve mathematical proficiency that require an

active learning climate. Principals of schools are expected to

strive to improve students' mathematical proficiency by

providing learning resources and developing teacher

competencies. For future researchers, they should be able to

investigate this problem further by conducting research on

student learning outcomes using the three mathematics

textbooks that have been studied.

Mathematics proficiency among Saudi learners and to

compare them with the learners' levels of the first country

globally (B-S-J-Z -- China) and regionally (UAE) according to the

results of PISA 2018, as well as to identify some of the learners'

characteristics that affected their results and their mathematics

proficiency levels. The results indicated low levels of

mathematics proficiency among Saudi and Emirati learners, who

are concentrated at levels 0 and 1, as the levels of mathematics

proficiency are very high among Chinese learners, who are

concentrated at levels 5 and 6. However, the levels of Emirati

learners are slightly higher than Saudi learners, especially at

levels 3, 4, and 5. The study also found some characteristics of

learners that have the greatest impact on learners' results and

levels of mathematics proficiency. (Kandel, 2021).

The study by Lemonidis and Pilianidis (2020) indicate that

fractions are one of the most complex mathematical topics that

learners encounter in their mathematics education. Researchers

argue that this is because most teachers find it difficult to teach

fractions. These researchers provided various reasons why

fractions are difficult to understand and teach. The first reason is

the failure to understand the logic behind fractional operations.

Studies reveal that learners find it difficult to understand

fractions because they do not try to understand the logic behind

the fractional operations, instead they memorize the rules,

formulas, algorithms and terms.

 A study of Kandeel (2019), showed that students face a

large number of academic difficulties in learning statistics and

probability, and this is due to the weakness of their

mathematical and statistical background. These academic

difficulties are concentrated in the lessons of permutation,

combination, probability, and random variable. The results

indicated that all the academic difficulties surveyed by

instructors occurred at the “high” or “very high” level and that

no difficulty was located at the medium or low levels which

stated that a large proportion of students, even in college, do not

understand many of the basic statistical concepts they have

studied and part of this is inadequacies in prerequisite

mathematics skills and abstract reasoning.

Majority of the students regarded algebra as one of the

difficult areas in mathematics. They even find difficulties in

algebraic expressions. Thus, this investigation was conducted to

identify common errors in algebraic expressions of the preservice

teachers. The data were gathered using the developed test

administered to the 79 preservice teachers. Results show that

performance in algebraic expressions of the preservice teachers

is average. Furthermore, they also have difficulties in translating

mathematical phrases into symbols. Thus, mathematics teachers

should strengthen instruction on these topics. Mathematics

teachers handling the subject are also encouraged to develop

learning exercises that will develop the mastery level of the

students. (Marpa, 2019).

Locale

Mathematical Proficiency of Education Students. The

Philippines has consistently performed poorly in international

mathematics large-scale assessments. Results of the 2018

Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed the

Philippines ranked 2nd to the last in Mathematics based on

country means (Department of Education, 2019). Specifically,

18.5% of the students met the minimum standard defined in the

PISA 2018 (i.e., Level 2 or higher), 26.9% were at Level 1

proficiency, and the majority (54.6%) of the Filipino students who

participated scored below the lowest proficiency Level 1, the

lowest proficiency group. This clearly shows that there are more

Filipino students who fall below international standards in terms

of mathematics proficiency, indicating insufficient mathematics

skills compared to their age group counterparts from other

nationalities. In comparison, students from private schools

performed slightly better than those from public schools with

means of 395 and 343, respectively.

 Based on the study of Grant 2019, the mathematical

performance showed a significant relationship with student's

study habits. It is concluded that the main reason for students'

low performance in mathematics is due to their lack of interest in

studying mathematics subjects. Students find mathematics

subjects boring and difficult to understand without a teacher's

aide.

Singh, P. (2018) agreed that students have low scores on

mathematics examinations not because they lack the ability to

solve the problem but because they do not give ample time to

study and understand mathematical problems on their exams.

The BSP (2019) Financial Inclusion Survey measured

Filipino adults’ including college students’ financial literacy level

using three questions that cover the computation of simple and

compounded interest. The results of the BSP (2019) study

revealed that only 8 percent got all questions correctly, 41

percent got a score of one in three, and 24 percent obtained a

score of zero. Furthermore, there are only about one-third were

able to correctly answer the questions related to interest

calculations. The BSP (2019) reported that the results are

problematic, considering that about two-thirds of Filipino adults

have a poor understanding of how savings grow, how interest is

computed, and what is the consequence of compounding.

 Among public school students, skipping class days was also

associated with identifying poor performance in mathematics. A

qualitative study of absenteeism in the Philippines found varied

reasons why students skip their classes, including feeling

helpless in their classes, having mixed priorities, and

unappealing learning environments, but among students from

lower-income families, one reason for skipping classes is not

having money for transportation to go to school, or they may be

too hungry to go to school on an empty stomach. In the case of

public school students, these different reasons might be

intersecting and have an adverse impact on the students’

learning of mathematics (Jabar, 2021).

Synthesis

The literature and studies presented give support to this

study. Every student met different kinds of problems and thus

need to experience in both failure and success in the

mathematics classroom in order to become mathematically

proficient.

The recent Trends in International Mathematics and

Science Study showed that Philippines rank 58 th out of 58

participating countries in mathematics, this shows students poor

mathematical performance and poor mathematical

accomplishment of students are not only in the country but also

international apprehension.

Prior studies mentioned that the main reason for students'

low performance in mathematics is due to their lack of interest in

studying mathematics subjects. Students find mathematics

subjects boring and difficult to understand without a teacher's

aide. In addition, the above-mentioned researches had presented

meaningful facts in the identification of thorough areas of

concern for the investigation.

Overall, the mathematical proficiency of education

students are multifaceted and require a comprehensive approach

to teaching and learning.