Learning Styles and Mathematics Performance of Grade Eight Students in Los Baaos Integrated School, S.Y. 201442015

Abstract

This research aimed to determine the relationship between students’ learning styles of grade eight students and their mathematics performance during the 1st quarter in Los Banos Integrated School, Los Banos, Laguna. The instrument used in this study is the Learning Style inventory questionnaire adapted from Dr. John Golden, a Michigan math professor and proprietor of the MathHombre blog and based from the learning styles of Harvey Silver. The questionnaire is divided into two parts: the first part is the respondent’s profile which consists of name and sex then the second part is the items which consist of 10 items for each learning style: Mastery, Interpersonal, Understanding and Self-expressive respectively. The instrument, learning style inventory questionnaire, was administered to 187 randomly selected respondents. Male respondents are greater than the female respondents having 95 and 92 respondents respectively. They are chosen through “draw-lots” or fishbowl technique. The data gathered from the questionnaires are analyzed and interpreted using descriptive statistics such as frequency count and percentage distribution and inferential statistics including Chi-square test (non-parametric) to determine the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. The students who belong to mastery learning style consist of 53 or 28.34% is the highest learning style of all the respondents. Under the level of performance in mathematics, the dominant level is the developing level in which the student at this level possesses the minimum knowledge and skills and core understandings, but needs help throughout the performance of authentic tasks. A chi-square test was utilized to analyze if there is a significant relationship between respondent’s learning styles and level of performance in mathematics. The study revealed that there is no significant relationship between the variables, the degree of freedom is 16 computed from the formula, the Computed X2 – value is 16.984 and the tabular X2 – value at .05 level of significance is 20.30. Therefore, the hypothesis stating that there is no significant relationship between Grade eight students’ learning styles and their mathematics performance is accepted. Similar studies need to be conducted to further measure the associations of learning styles and students’ mathematical performance of other variables which were not included in this study. Moreover, conduct seminars and trainings for students to enhance students’ learning styles towards mathematics.