ABSTRACT

Mathematics is essential for daily life and plays a crucial role in school curricula; yet students‘ performance in it remains very low worldwide, Somalia not being exceptional. This study intended to find out whether teacher characteristics, teaching methods, use of teaching resources and student attitudes towards mathematics affect students‘ performance in mathematics or not. The study was conducted in Banadir region of Somalia, which has a total of seventy secondary schools with form four-student population of 2500. The study employed a survey research design. Stratified sampling technique was used to select 12 secondary schools for the study. Three research instruments namely, mathematics teachers‘ questionnaire (MTQ), form four students questionnaire (FFSQ), and classroom observation schedule (COS), were employed. The validity and the reliability of the instruments were enhanced by a pilot study. A reliability coefficient of 0.75 was obtained for this study. Data collected for objectives (a) to (e) were of descriptive nature, therefore descriptive statistics were used to analyze them. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to get descriptive statistics such as, percentages, frequencies and tabulations. The results were presented in frequency tables and charts. The findings were then interpreted to make observations. The observations were discussed correspondingly to the research questions and objectives. The study found that 37.5% of the teachers felt that teaching methods played a major role in students‘ performance in mathematics. Incidentally, expository approaches of teaching mathematics were the only methods used in mathematics classes in Banadir region, leading to students‘ poor performance. Methods of providing feedback to students were inadequate. In review of these findings, the study concludes that there was need to address for mathematics education such as teacher training curriculum reviewed in Banadir region. For this reason the study recommended the following: ministry of education and umbrella groups should harmonize the policy of teaching mathematics by organizing in-service trainings for mathematics teachers with regard to teaching methods and use of teaching resources.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

• Background

Mathematics, which is one of the oldest fields of study in the history of mankind, has long been one of the most central components of human thought. It has been believed for centuries that mathematics sharpens the human mind, develops their logical thinking; enhances their reasoning ability and spatial power. It influences an individual’s personal development and contributes to the wealth of the country. This is mainly because it is at the heart of many successful careers and successful lives.

Mathematical skills for daily life are developed in school mathematics curriculum. Cockcroft (1982) states that there can be no doubt that every child should study mathematics at school. He also highlights that most people regard the study of mathematics, together with that of English as being essential. For this reason mathematics is one of the core subjects in all schools worldwide as explained by the amount of time devoted to it in schools. In many countries, it is compulsory in primary and secondary levels of education.

A major reason for the persistence of the special place held by mathematics in the school curriculum is the way in which it has been used in the last two centuries as a screening device, or filter, for entry to numerous professions (Howson & Wilson, 1986). Another main reason for studying mathematics is that it is interesting and enjoyable, and that people like its clarity, challenges and intrinsic interest. Cockcroft (1982) states, that the

inherent interest of mathematics and the appeal which it can have for many children and adults provide yet another reason for teaching mathematics in schools. In Africa, as in other parts of the world, mathematics enjoys a very prestigious position in school curriculum.

In Kenya, efforts to enhance the effectiveness of mathematics education have included making mathematics a compulsory subject during the formative years of education‘ (Miheso 2002:2). Wasiche (2006) observes that in Kenya, mathematics enjoys a special status in the school curriculum by being one of the core subjects and that more lessons of mathematics are taught in schools than science.

Similarly, mathematics was and still is one of the core and compulsory subjects in primary and secondary schools in Somalia. According to most educational institutions in Somalia, where there has been no central educational system for almost two decades (post-war era), mathematics is compulsory in both primary and secondary schools. Furthermore in some institutions a primary school student cannot pass to the next grade level unless he/ she passes in mathematics. Here, it is privileged both in terms of the time devoted to it and the weighted mark assigned to it.

Despite the fact that mathematics is essential for daily life and plays a crucial role in school curriculum, students‘ performance remains very low. This caused an outcry from mathematics teachers, mathematics educators, parents, and students. One of the main issues for the outcry was the students‘ poor performance in the subject. ―By the 1980s,

however, the public at large and the mathematics community in particular began to voice a mounting concern regarding the mathematical competency and arithmetical skills of the high school graduates being produced. The resounding question of the 1980s, extending over to the 1990s is ‗Why are the literates from the school so mathematically illiterate?‘ This question, which confronts the serious thinkers of mathematics education today, is not confined to any one country or any one culture or, for that matter, any one system of education; it is being raised almost universally‖ (Morris & Arora, 1992:1).

The Priorities in School Mathematics project (PRISM) surveyed nine different groups in the United States: classroom teachers of mathematics at every level, mathematicians, and supervisors in the schools, mathematics educators, parents, and lay people concerned with policy decisions in the schools. It demonstrated conclusively that each group knew that something was wrong with school mathematics‘ (Morris & Arora, 1992). The education system of almost all countries faces the problem of secondary school students‘ poor performance in mathematics. Many countries in Africa present the extent of the problem in their annual education reports.

In Kenya, for example, the mean mark of mathematics is very low. The table below shows the mathematics mean scores for the years 2000-2004.

Table1.1 Mean Scores Mathematics from KCSE Results: 2000-2004

Table 1.1 shows that students‘ performance in mathematics in Kenya for the five years presented was below average. There was a slight improvement in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

According to Benson (1999), school achievement in mathematics in Kenya has been poor as can be seen in students‘ performance in KCSE. In KCSE examinations, the mean score marks of the candidates has been consistently below 18%. In 1985 alone, about 47.24% of the KCSE candidates got grade E, 22.03% got grade D- while another 11.17% got grade D. The implication is that, in 1995, about 80% of the candidates scored the lowest grades ‗D‘ plain and ‗E‘ on a 12 points score marks, where ‗A‘ is the highest grade and

‗E‘ is the lowest.

Miheso (2002) notes that the failure rate in mathematics at Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in 1999 was reported as 79.2% by the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) report 2000. Similarly, the report revealed some of the lowest mean grades for 1994, 1996 and 1999 as 9.3, 18.12 and 13.23 respectively. This problem was not confined to Kenya. Similar cases were also reported from other countries, such as Somalia.

In Somalia, the problem of secondary school students‘ poor performance in mathematics has persisted for a long time. Available records show that performance in mathematics among secondary school students in Somalia is as poor as in other countries. One secondary school mathematics teacher recalls that in the school year 1982-1983, out of

270 students (in one school) 19 of them passed in mathematics. This gives a failure rate of almost 93%. Similarly, the mean score was very low.

According to statistics from the examination board of Imam Shafi‘i Foundation, an educational institution in Mogadishu, out of 232 students who sat for the secondary school leaving examination in the school year 2005-2006, 113 students failed. This accounts for 48.7%. In Somalia a student is considered to be a failure in a subject if he/she scores below 50% in that subject. Here the summative type of evaluation is used.

Here, it can be seen that the failure rate in the post-war era is much lower than that in the pre-war era. On the other hand the mean score of the subject is also higher. Hence, one would feel that students‘ performance in mathematics has improved. This is not a true picture, since no remedial program aimed at enhancing students‘ performance in mathematics was implemented during the war era. The results could be attributed to the fact that in the post-war era the scores are based on unstandardized school based examinations where the same teachers who taught the students set and mark their own examinations. From this analysis one would rightly say that the problem of secondary school students‘ poor performance in mathematics has not been solved. This means that the factors that led to such poor performance have been identified for appropriate remedy. It is for this reason that this study was designed to identify and address such factors to enhance students‘ performance in mathematics. Even in the post-war era the mean score of the subject has generally remained to be the lowest of all subjects. The mean scores of some school subjects from three secondary schools in Banadir r egion are shown in Table

1.2. For beyond the scope of this study, the names of the schools have been withheld and instead letters are used as shown in Table 1.2.

Table1.2: Mean Scores (in %) of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology from Three Secondary Schools in Banadir Region

(Scores in %)

Table1.2 shows the mean scores of four school subjects namely, mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology from three secondary schools in Banadir region. By comparing the mean scores of the different subjects in the table, it is seen that mathematics mean scores are the lowest in each school in every school-year. The fact that mathematics is applied in all subject areas including sciences created a contention of the study as to why such

scores are attained in the schools. The scenario prompted this systematic research to find out the root causes of the problem.

      Mathematics Education in Somalia

Lafole College of Education, a faculty under the Somali National University (SNU), was the only source of trained mathematics teachers for the Somali secondary schools since its establishment in 1972. Although the main objective of its foundation was to cover the national needs for secondary school teachers, there was a significant shortage of mathematics and science teachers as early as 1979. This shortage could be explained mainly by the fact that teaching career has not been generally appreciated in Somalia. Normally, very few secondary school leavers chose teaching as their future career. A small percentage of those who decided to teach majored in mathematics. In addition to the students‘ negative attitudes towards mathematics, mathematics teachers and head of departments contribute to the phobia students have about the subject. In one occasion, the head of mathematics and science department in the college of education, told a group of new mathematics students that the subject was not as easy as they thought, and that many of their juniors and seniors were found in sane. This actually discouraged all the prospective mathematics teachers and most probably gave some courage to those who were already hesitant, to leave the department. However, most of the few graduates from the college of education did not remain in the field for a long time. Most of them looked for better-paid jobs since teaching was usually underpaid. It seemed that teaching was only a transient job. So shortage of teachers in general and mathematics teachers in particular was inevitable.