Sport Science Students’ Perceptions in Solving Mathematical Word Problems

Abstract

Mathematical concepts that students learnt in school play a huge part in their lives later. In fact,
the underlying skills learners developed in mathematics class like taking risks, thinking logically,
and solving problems, will help them solve work-related and real-world problems. One such
mathematics concept is the mathematical word problem solving. This is a mathematical exercise
where some background information on the problem is presented in ordinary language rather
than in mathematical notations. Even though such exercises are a common way to train and test
learners’ understanding of concepts using a narrative, the ability to interpret the word problems
into mathematical concepts can be challenging especially to non-science students. Thus, the aim
of this study is to identify the difficulties faced by students in solving mathematical word
problems. First sample is 30 students form 1 were randomly selected to answer a short academic
test. The data was analysed to identify the difficulties faced by students and to compare the
students’ performance between gender in solving mathematical word problems. Based on the
results obtained, the majority of students had an average knowledge in solving mathematical
word problems and there is no significant relationship between a short test score among gender.
Second sample is 40 students from the same school were randomly selected to answer a survey
questionnaire. There are three sections in the questionnaire which relates to students’ anxiety,
learning enjoyment and satisfaction. The Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4
(strongly agree) were used. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that students felt
more motivated when they learned about mathematical word problems with the help of their
teachers. Besides, they were happy to be able to do practice exercises for mathematical word
problems if they are practiced in group discussion. Therefore, theother study could be provided
to search for new methods for sport science students to overcome the challenges in solving word
problems in mathematics subjects.