MORCILLA, Marivic L. Sotero Unpublished Masteral Thesis, University of Nueva Caceres, Naga City, 2004.
Keywords: Problem Solving Strategy and Students Achievements
This study primary desired to determine the effects of Problem Solving Approach as a strategy in teaching Basic Mathematics to college students of Partido State University- Tinambac campus Tinambac, Camarines Sur, 1 st Semester, A/Y 2003-2004. Specifically, the study sought to answer the following questions: (1) what is the achievement level of the students in the experimental and control groups based on the pretest results along computation, comprehension and analysis skills? (2) What is the achievement level of the students in both groups based on the post-test results along the same three skills? (3) is there a significant difference in the achievement level between the control and the experimental groups based on the pretest and post-test results?
This study utilized the quasi-experimental method involving two groups of students, the Control and Experimental groups as samples. A teacher-made test was used as the pre-test and post-test to determine the Mathematics achievement level of students along comprehension, computation and analysis skills. The topics covered in Basic Mathematics were rational numbers, discounts, interest, ratio and proportion.
Major conclusions of the study were: 91) Based on the pretest results, the three skills evaluated showed that the lowest scores were in analysis skills which revealed that the two groups encountered difficulties in analyzing worded problems. (2) The achievement levels of the two groups based on the post-test results improved, but the results of experimental group compared with the control group were much better along the three skills. (3) The pre-test results of both groups had a computed t-value of 0.045 which was less than the tabular t-values of 1.671 at 5% and 2.39 at 1% levels of significance which further showed that there was no significant difference between the pre-test results of both groups; however, The post-test results which had a computed t-value of 3.351 was greater than the tabular t-values which showed significant difference between the post-test results of the two groups; and mean gain as evidence showed that the experimental group performed better than the control groups with a computed t-value of 4.24.