Date of Award

1-1-2000

Thesis Type

Masters

Document Type

Thesis

Divisions

Faculty of Education

Department

-

Institution

Universiti Malaya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of language in mathematics achievement of Form Four students, and their difficulties in solving mathematics word problems in Bahasa Malaysia version. 40 Form Four students from one of the Chinese Independent High School in Kuala Lumpur, who speak Bahasa Malaysia as a second language were asked to solve 10 mathematics word problems in Bahasa Malaysia version in 40 minutes. Before that, they were asked to solve 10 mathematics word problems in Bahasa Cina version during their Final Year Examination (1999). After that, J samples were interviewed. The interviews conducted to find out what kind of difficulties students faced while solving the mathematics word problems in Bahasa Malaysia version. The result revealed that Form Four students performed poorly in solving mathematics word problem in Bahasa Malaysia version. Also, in solving mathematics word problems in Bahasa Malaysia version, the difficulties are linguistic in nature. Students unsuccessful in solving mathematics word problems because of the potential lack of knowledge of Bahasa Malaysia. The result of this study will provide insights for understanding the language related difficulties faced by the Form Four students when solving mathematics word problem in their second language. Accordingly, it is recommended that teachers need to be more careful in teaching and assessing mathematics word problems since these Independent High School students could not understand word problems because of their lack of knowledge of Bahasa Malaysia.

Initial

snms

Additional Information

Dissertation (M.A) -- Faculty of Education, Universiti Malaya, 2000.

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