97
International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 97-116, March 2021 https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.20.3.7
Success Indicators of Mathematical ProblemSolving Performance Among Malaysian Matriculation Students Suriati Abu Bakar, Nur Raidah Salim, Ahmad Fauzi Mohd Ayub and Kathiresan Gopal Institute for Mathematical Research, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5572-9611 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7941-1878 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4313-2922 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5302-8179
Abstract. This study identifies the success indicators of mathematical problem-solving performances among Malaysian matriculation students divided into four indicators: mathematical beliefs, mathematics attitudes, mathematics self-efficacy and metacognitive skills. For this purpose, 368 matriculation students from three matriculation colleges were selected as respondents using proportioned stratified sampling. This study utilized a descriptive correlational design approach. A set of questionnaires and a mathematics test were used as the instruments. Independent variables were measured using a questionnaire, while mathematical problemsolving performance was measured using a mathematics test. The findings show students had a high level in mathematics beliefs, attitude towards mathematics, mathematics self-efficacy and metacognitive skills. Statistical tests to determine success indicators predicting mathematical problem-solving performance revealed that mathematics self-efficacy does not contribute significantly to these variables and that metacognitive skills make the most decisive contribution, followed by mathematics attitude and mathematics beliefs. Hence, this study suggests that problem-solving should be included as an essential part of the mathematics matriculation syllabus to enable students to improve their problem-solving abilities. Keywords: mathematics beliefs; mathematics attitude; mathematics selfefficacy and metacognitive skills; problem-solving performance
1. Introduction The Malaysian Ministry of Education implemented steps for the transformation of education through the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013_2025 to empower the nation’s human capital with the expertise and skills of the 21st century and be among the top global players (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2016). The ©Authors This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
