PGT 212 E MATHEMATICS TEACHING METHOD I

ACADEMIC SESSION 2015/2016 SEMESTER I

Course Work: Review of Journal Article

Journal Title:
Malaysian and Singaporean Students Affective Characteristics and
Mathematics Performance from PISA 2012

Chin Huan

118933

Lecturers:
Dr. Wun Thiam Yew, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chew Cheng Meng

Tutor: Dr. Wun Thiam Yew

Date of Submission: 16th November 2015

Tutorial day and time: Monday 9:00 a.m. 9:50 a.m.

Journal Review
Journal Title :

Malaysian and Singaporean Students Affective Characteristics

and Mathematics Performance from PISA 2012

Programme for International Student Assessment is an international

assessment organised by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) which measure 15-year-old students mathematics, science and reading
literacy every 3 years. The first PISA conducted in 2000, followed by 2003, 2006,
2009 and 2012. Malaysia participated in PISA since 2009, but obtained disappointing
results in PISA 2012. There is a decline in scores and Malaysia lagged behind our
South East Asian Countries such as Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand regardless the
push to improve the education system in Malaysia (OECD 2014). Malaysian students
scored below the OECD average. However, Singapore managed to maintain as top
performer in the most of international assessments (OECD 2011). In fact, Malaysia
and Singapore have similarities in ethnicity, cultures, languages, and geographical
location.
The study revealed that students affective characteristics influence
mathematics performance in Malaysia and Singapore. Singaporean students have high
ability in solving a range of pure and applied mathematics problem. The outstanding
mathematics performance of Singaporean student can be explained by their high selfefficacy. In contrast, Malaysian students have relatively low level of self-efficiency.
Malaysian students may feel stress and helpless when dealing with mathematics. The
higher levels of mathematics anxiety among Malaysian students in learning
mathematics could be related to their underperformed results in PISA 2012. This can
be further supported by the claim of Ashcraft and Moore on 2009, Mathematics
anxiety is significant impediment to mathematics achievement.
In this case, the medium of instruction brings significant impact on students
performance in mathematics. Since 1970s, the medium of instruction in primary and
secondary mathematics subjects in Singapore is English language until present (Woo,
public communication, August 28, 2015). Different from Singapore, Malay language
is the mathematics instructions medium till 2002. It is markedly reason to explain the
relative high level of mathematics anxiety of Malaysian students could be due to the

changes of mathematics instruction medium, especially during transition period of

implementation of English as the medium of mathematics instruction in all
government schools in 2002. This can be proven with the declining performance in
Mathematics in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science (TIMSS) in
2011.
The medium of instruction of the subject of Mathematics was change back to
Malay language in 2012 in line with the new education policy. However, quite a
number of communities do not support the new education policy as the matter of fact
that English is lingua franca for Science and Mathematics Community. For this
reason, Dual Language Programme (DLP) is introduced under Budget 2016. Under
this programme, the option of instruction medium (either English or Malay language)
for the subject of science and mathematics are given to 300 selected schools.
Moreover, the finding reveals that mathematics anxiety is correlated to
teaching approach. The major source of math anxiety is the teaching approach of
"explain-practice-memorize". (Steele & Alfred, 1998, p. 18) Despite practice make
perfect, student may loss their interest on mathematics. In order to combat the student
negative feeling on mathematics, the mathematics teachers need to be creative in their
teaching methods. They encourage their students to be doing mathematics instead of
listening to or watching the teachers demonstration. In addition, cooperative learning
teaching approach is more suitable to students with mathematics anxiety. As the
matter of fact, they may more understand the concept explained by their peers. In this
case, teachers have to make sure the student explains the concept correctly.
In brief, the disparity of mathematics performance in PISA 2012 between
Singapore and Malaysia could be explained by the affective characteristics of students
such as self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety. The relatively low level of selfefficacy as well as mathematics anxiety of Malaysian student may be affected by the
medium of the instruction and teaching approach. In a hope that better education
policy which encounter the appropriate instruction medium will be introduced sooner
or later. On the other hand, teacher should realise their responsibility to help student
to overcome the mathematics anxiety by using appropriate teaching method.