Students' perception on academic Performance

University of Belize EDLD 5031- Research Methods in Education Research Project On Students’ perception of low academic performance in mathematics Pedro Caal 2nd October 2019 Abstract The purpose of this study is to find out factors and experiences of students that affect low academic performance. To accomplish this purpose, the study utilizes qualitative narrative approaches, documenting the experiences of high school students through focus group discussions, responses to open-ended questionnaires and drawing of students past and current experiences. A total of 50 students participated in the study, 40 selected to answer the open-ended questionnaire out of which 23 answered and the stories of 10 students through interviews and 10 drawings are included in this study. The voices of the students within the study, lead to the development of two themes: Factors and experiences of students in the classroom. Factors was divided into two sub themes student-related and teacher-related factors. Student- related sub-themes were experiences such as grit, personal efficacy and cognitive ability, and demographic factors and teacher-related subthemes were pedagogical styles, personality and teaching strategies. To further enhance performance in mathematics, students should develop motivation, interest and positive attitude and especially educators should implement different teaching strategies, pedagogical styles and change in personality so as to affect personality and relationship between students. The result of this study showed that students’ negative attitude, low motivation, lack of interest, gender and address, teacher’s personality, teaching strategies and personality are factors that contributed to students’ low performance in mathematics. Data collected from this research would help teachers, administrators and the Ministry of education in creating a better learning environment, reevaluate the national mathematics curriculum and develop programs to assist students and teachers in relating with each other to improve low academic performance. Table of Content Page number Chapter one The project Introduction 4 Statement of the Problem 4 - 5 Background and Rationale 5 Significance of the Study 5 - 6 Purpose of the Study 6 Research Question & Subsidiary Questions 6 - 7 Scope of the Study 7 Literature Review Conceptual Framework 09 - 10 Introduction 10 - 11 Student- related: Personal Efficacy and Cognitive Ability 11 - 12 Student- related: Grit 13 - 14 Student-related: Demographic Factors 14 - 16 Other factors 16 – 17 Summary 18 Chapter two Methodology Introduction 19 Design 19- 20 Qualitative Narrative Approach 20 - 22 Data Collection Methods 22 - 25 Method of Analysis 25 Chapter three Narratives of factors and experiences of students Introduction 26 Student-related: general overview 27 Student- related: Demographic Factors 28 - 29 Student- related: Personal Efficacy and Cognitive Ability 29 - 33 Student-related: Grit 33 - 36 Teacher-related: personality, teaching strategies and Pedagogical styles 36 – 38 Drawing on past and current experiences in mathematics 38 - 55 Chapter four Thematic analysis of factors and experiences of students Introduction 56 - 57 Student-related: general overview 57 Student- related: Demographic Factors 57 - 58 Student- related: Personal Efficacy and Cognitive Ability 59 Student-related: Grit 59 Teacher-related: personality, teaching strategies and Pedagogical styles 59 - 60 Limitations 60 - 61 Recommendations 61 Conclusions 62 References 63 – 69 Appendix 70 – 80 Chapter One The project Introduction: This research project is to find out the student related factors that affect student’s performance in mathematics in a secondary school in Belmopan City. Specifically, it is to understand students’ perception of past, and present experiences that contributed to low performance in the subject. This chapter entails components such as the statement of the research problem, background and rationale, a discussion of the significance of the study, presentation of research questions, the purpose of the study, research questions. Statement of the Problem Several studies identified factors affecting students’ low performance in mathematics as student-related and in this view it is important to obtain students’ perception on what Belizean students think. In this study, the focus is on student-related factors, since past literature recommends that the main reasons why students perform very low in academics in standardized test is because it is mainly self-indulgent. Student-related factors are the situations in school or learning environment that are at the students' disposal and have an effect on students’ low academic performance in Mathematics. Mathematics has been the most important, yet difficult and disliked subject by most human generations across the world (Gafoor & Kurukan, 2015). It is one of the essential science subjects which assisted in the development process of Technology and engineering. In the Belizean educational system, Science, Technology, Education, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) project was introduced in the year 2018 for the country, however students are not performing up to standard in the standardized test. For the past decade, the average result in standardized tests has been below, 50% for both the Primary School Examinations (PSE) and Caribbean Secondary School Examinations (CSEC). For the past 20 years of our primary and secondary schools, the mathematics results remain constant and show a similar trend. It is critical to find out student-related factors that contribute to students’ low performance these years. Background and Rationale The summative assessment results in the secondary school X in the western area of the Cayo district remain constant and slightly fluctuated for the past decade, in view of this it is critical to find out whether students contribute towards this low performance. Mathematics is a subject students struggle a lot in, both Belize and across the world. There are many studies conducted across the world in reference to this topic, however, there is no current literature in Belizean context. This has been the trend during the entire Belize’s educational system, hence, it is critical to find out what are the reasons, factors why students are performing poorly and what can be implemented to remedy this phenomenon. It is important to figure out/study student related factors affecting students academically in mathematics at the secondary school and what can be recommended to fix the situation of students’ performance in math. Additionally, Belize is adopting the current stand that mathematics is the leading subject in Science, Technology, and engineering (STEM) to drive the country's development and the economy. Belize to become competitive globally, a strong focus has to be on strengthening student’s abilities in Mathematics, therefore it is critical that studies be conducted to determine factors that affect students in mathematics. Significance of the study For the past decade, students graduating at secondary school X, without strong mathematics skills. The regional exam called the CSEC, for the past 20 years, the average result of students passing, at this institution remained below 40%. It slightly fluctuated during the past five years, by one mark. There are unknown factors that affect students in mathematics at this institution, since the majority of the students coming into first form, obtained 70% and above. There may be factors and experience of students’ that affect performance, so it is vital to find out these factors and what contributes to students’ negative experiences towards the subject of mathematics for teachers, administrators and the school board. This study played a vital role in understanding the student-related factors that affect students’ performance in mathematics. The research work will be significant because it will find out the solutions to academic performance in mathematics that is by improving academic performance and it will be used as a guide to understand the phenomenon encountered in mathematics in the city of Belmopan. The study will be useful for curriculum planners at the institution and throughout the country since there will be an understanding of what factors affect students and how to amend the mathematics national curriculum, as well as what coordination efforts are needed among schools. Administrators since they are the ones in charge of schools and need to create programs and create direction to affect change in mathematics at the institution. School board they are the governing body that is in charge of creating policies, to mandate administrators to create intervention programs, in line with secondary schools financing systems. The Ministry of Education, are the policy makers who can amend the national curriculum and create a coordination or collaboration among feeding schools and the secondary school X. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this qualitative, narrative study is to find out student-related factors and experiences that affect low academic performance in mathematics at a secondary school in Western Cayo. The purpose is created to find out factors and experiences from students’ perception of what contribute to low academic performance. Research Questions There is the need to find out factors and experiences that contributed to students’ low academic performance at a secondary school in Western Cayo of the country of Belize from students’ perception. There are evidently many factors that contribute to students’ success and failures, in this research the main focus is the students. At times, it is their attitudes, motivation, cognitive ability, mental readiness, grit, and other factors that assist students significantly in creating a path which is destructive or rewarding for their life success. Past literature has supported this view, but from other countries perspective, but it is important to find it in Belizean context, especially for the selected participating school. To answer the main question and achieve the aim of the study, it is important that subsidiary questions be developed to assist in obtaining the desired outcome. These two selected subsidiary questions for this small study will be: Does the students’ personal efficacy and cognitive ability, grit, demographic factors and demographic factors affect students, and contribute to students’ low academic performance in mathematics? And What individual experiences of students contribute to students’ low academic performance in mathematics? As previously mentioned, many of the times, it is the students themselves that may affect their performance in one way or the other, and it will be enlightening to find out what really affects students. Scope of the Study The research work is confined to selected second to fourth form students who struggled in mathematics. Students need to either repeat a year because of mathematics, did summer class because of mathematics and continually struggles with mathematics to be a part of this study. These students will solely be from a Secondary School X in Western Cayo District. This research will be used to find out students’ perception of what contributes to low academic performance in mathematics. Literature Review Conceptual Framework Figure 1: Conceptual Framework: Finding out student-related factors that affect students’ performance in mathematics The conceptual framework of this study is in Figure 1 above. From the figure, the key components are personal efficacy and cognitive ability, supporting factors, grit and demographic factors. On the issue of personal efficacy and cognitive ability, psychology and personality are the main cause of poor academic performance, and this is from negative attitude, low motivation, and lack of interest. The second arrow depicts supporting factors such as family, peers and teacher, which can significantly affect academic performance of pupils negatively or positively. When parents and teachers are not supportive of a child’s education, it can be detrimental to students’ academic performance. This is similar to peer and teacher supporting the student. Another arrow is Grit, where students’ personality and traits have a major impact of self-performance. When there is courage, passion, perseverance, and fearlessness, students can achieve anything they want. On the contrary, when these lack, students develop withdrawal symptoms. The last arrow is demographic factors where students’ socioeconomic factors contribute to students’ academic performance. This is the new perspective that this paper propagates. This situation creates a dilemma for the pupils as they face daunting challenges towards their academic path in mathematics. Introduction: Literature Review The previous chapter provided an overview of what the study is about and questions that will be used to find out student-related factors affecting students’ low performance in mathematics in a Secondary School X in Western Cayo District, which is the purpose of the study. There were significant studies conducted and found on specific factors affecting students such as attitudes, motivation, teacher, parent, math anxiety, math phobia, however, there is not much research found encompassing all of the student-related factors. This study focuses on student-related factors such as personal efficacy and cognitive ability, grit, demographic factors, available support systems for students to succeed academically. The majority of studies reviewed in mathematics employed mostly quantitative research approaches, in which this study will differ and will be employing the qualitative narrative research approach. There are a few past studies found under the qualitative method, in a few developed countries such as the United States,Australia and Nigeria. In Belize’s context, there is not much research conducted in the area of mathematics, especially finding out factors that affect students’ performance. The literature review began examining student-related factors with themes such as personal efficacy and cognitive ability, grit, demographic factors, and available support systems for students’ academic achievement in countries like the United States, Australia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Canada, New Zealand, England and Rwanda. Student-related factors are highly significant and important to academic achievement and students attitudes, motivation, interest, personality, attitude, courage, perseverance, gender, demographic factors and passion that played a significant role in students’ academic performance, whether negatively or positively(Lisciandro et. al.). These are organized into themes and discussed successively. Student- related factors: Personal Efficacy and Cognitive Ability According to Patterson & Kelleher (2005), personal efficacy is an individual’s beliefs about his/her capability to accomplish challenging goals. Micheal & Alsup (2016) found that students’ belief about his/her capability affected him/her positively or negatively. In addition, students with low personal efficacy obtain low grades and students with high personal efficacy achieve academic excellence. In terms of academic achievement, good individual experience is needed to perform well academically, self-efficacy beliefs define the strength of a sense of personal mastery, confidence in abilities to make an impact. It is self-efficacy beliefs and a filter system used to evaluate past experiences and to make judgement about what an individual wants to achieve academically. Self-efficacy, creates the type of attitude, motivation, interest, and will that a student displays (Patterson & Kelleher, 2005). Ispas & Borman (2015), defined cognitive ability as a general mental capability involving reasoning, problem solving, planning, abstract thinking, complex idea comprehension and learning from experience. The higher the cognitive ability of the student, the better they are in mathematics and supported students’ high performance and the lower students’ cognitive ability correlates to students' low performance, which yields low personal efficacy (Ispas, Borman, 2015). Based on Patterson & Kelleher (2005) and Ispas & Borman (2015), personal efficacy and cognitive ability drive students’ motivation, attitude, courage, interest, and strength to work hard or be complacent and to be low or high achiever. Students with low personal efficacy and low cognitive ability yield negative attitude, low motivation and lack of interest (Micheal & Alsup, 2016,;Khana et. al, 2018); Skirbekk et. al ,2014; Larkin & Jorgensen, 2015). Khana,et. al. (2018), conducted a study on university student of Amity, in India, entitled “Multidimensional Analysis of Psychological Factors affecting Students’ Academic Performance”, found out that psychological parameters such as motivation, study habits, emotional competence and self-efficacy are factors that affects students’ low performance in which a similar result obtained by Salim, Ahmad, Waini and Miswan (2017). Based on Khana et. al, (2018), motivation is the needs, desire, wants or drives within an individual, which can be extrinsic or intrinsic motivation to do something and the higher the motivation the better students’ performance and the lower students’ motivation the lower the students’ performance. Motivation was a strong predictor of students’ success. This study also revealed that students with good study habits and interest in school yielded better academic results and the higher students’ emotional competence and self-efficacy, students were able to obtain outstanding academic results. Recognizing and fulfilling the learning needs of students can be quite challenging in relation to individual interest, motivation, and attitude (Jones & Geerling, 2014). Past learning experiences are traumatic, and negative, which influence current students’ confidence, self-efficacy, beliefs and attitudes toward learning mathematics and are factors that affect academic performance ( Jones & Geerling, 2014). The reviewed literature supported the assumption that personal efficacy and cognitive ability are factors and experiences that affect students’ academic performance. The higher students’ personal efficacy and cognitive ability the better academic performance and experiences of students in educational institutions. The lower students’ personal efficacy and cognitive ability, the lower academic performance and experiences of students in mathematics. Student-related factors: Grit Another factor that was found to contribute to students’ academic performance was Grit. The higher the Grit, the better students’ performance in mathematics and the lower the students grit, the lower students’ performance. Grit is defined as the passion and perseverance for long-term and meaningful goals (Baruch-Feldman, 2017). These are important elements in students’ academic success to bounce back from failure. Passion and perseverance, are the driver of achievement and success, independent of and beyond intelligence and talent which also contribute to students’ academic achievement and success (Duckworth, 2016). As of recent many studies conducted in view of how much Grit contributes to students’ performance. Harb et al. (2006), found out that a student's efforts and passion in practicing long hours during the weekend for a math exam was a factor of how much grit was employed. In this study it was found that non-national students have more Grit and outperform national students and female students outperform male students. This showed that non-national students had the perseverance, passion and courage to stay the course and it doesn’t matter the trial and tribulation that came along with the studying, the students were in it for the long haul (Harb et. al, 2006). Another Grit factor that contributes to students’ academic performance is self-identification. Self- identification to be a good student in mathematics comes with confidence in mathematical abilities, confidence in the ability to learn mathematics, and experiences with math phobia or anxiety (Ashcraft, 2002). It was found by Staribratov & Babakova (2019) that when a student has self-identification or self-determination, it raises their sense of competence for a given task which helps them to strengthen their internal motivation. Additionally, in this study found that students with strong interest in the discipline and confidence, develop high self-determination(Dweck,2008). These are attributing factors to the success of internal and controllable causes which yield higher mathematics academic performance. On the contrary, the result of the study showed that gender disparities exist in relation to grit, where male significantly outperformed females on post assessments, and grittier students with low math confidence perform better than less grittier students (Flanagan & Einarson, 2017). Student- related factors: Demographic Another theme found to contribute significantly to students’ academic performance is the demographic factors. Past literature found that demographic factors contribute significantly to students’ achievement in mathematics. This signified that the older students were: the more mature they are and perform better in mathematics. According to Alasfour (2014), demographic factors are: age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, high school major and high school GPA as potential determinants of academic performance. There are empirical researches conducted which showed the impact of gender on academic performance. Gammie, Paver, Gammie, & Duncan (2003a) found out that females outperformed male students in accounting and auditing courses. In this study the demographic variables that were very influential as traits are age, gender and ethnicity which correlated to academic success in mathematics. A study conducted by Tekerek et al (2011), reported that female students have more positive attitudes towards mathematics than male students in terms of perceived benefits of mathematics to life. Students’ attitude in class by participation in their learning has a positive and significant effect on students' grades, especially for female students. In particular, this is an indication that female students who participate in class discussion and are, therefore, not passive are likely to have better performance (Harb and El-Shaarawi,2006). Moreover, having positive attitudes towards the university has a positive effect on overall students' performance for senior students, especially mathematics. In a study conducted with Turkish students, socioeconomic status has created segregation among other OECD countries (Aydın, Sarıer and Uysal, 2012). Gender, economic, social and cultural status index and time allocated for learning mathematics have a significant influence on mathematical literacy (Özberk et. al (2017). Edington et. al (1987), found that students from rural areas perform well at universities similar to students from urban communities. It is with students, recognizing and putting in all effort that education is important, that they need education that allows them to perform well at the university level. A study conducted by Gamble, Kim and An (2012) examined the effectiveness of a comprehensive middle school male academy in terms of students’ achievement and attitudes toward learning, found out that under-represented minority students had high levels of self-conceptualization, even though they may struggle at academics. These include low math or academic grades for minority males and lack of resources. This shows that students have the wherewithal, but face financial constraints and lack the resources to accomplish the task, which implied that resources and finances did not give students privilege to perform in school, which contributed to students’ academic performance in mathematics. Other factors/Support Systems Another factor found in the literature that contributed significantly to students’ academic performance in mathematics was the support systems of schools, parents, and peers. Based on Cooper (n.d), the student’s support system is defined and aims to understand how schools can feasibly deliver support both inside and outside the classroom to improve success for all students and these can be carried out by parents, teachers and peers. Based on Staribratov & Babakova (2019), negative support systems impact students’ grades negatively and a good support system provides great collaboration among students and any partner or support in the educational system. Schools who implemented proper and active support systems for students in mentoring and tutorial services, yielded great academic achievement, therefore this is a factor that contributes to students’ success (Staribratov & Babakova, 2019). Harb et al., (2006), the results of their study show that the most important factors that have a negative effect on students' performance are the unavailability of support systems from peers, parents and teachers. Peers who don’t want to do well academically encourage friends to do negative acts such as miss classes and end up performing poorly, whereas positive friends encourage classmates to do well. Peers were a factor that contributed to other peers’ success or failure and contribute significantly to peers academic performance. According to Lisciandro, Jones & Geerling (2014), teacher quality significantly affects learning experiences, attitudes, emotions and aspirations of students towards science and maths. The study found that teacher’s assistance and mentoring students, helps students’ academic performance. This also creates a system of trust and strong collaboration between students and teacher. In a study conducted by SaliSalam et al., (2017) found that curriculum, lecturers’ teaching style and attitude of lecturers affect students’ academic performance in mathematics significantly. In a study conducted on Bulgarian students, it was found that parental support has a significant role in mathematics academic performance, where supportive parents provided self-confidence and lower math anxiety to their child (Staribratov & Babakova, 2019). When parents motivate their child/children towards academic excellence, they become an agent of external motivators in the support system of schools (Ma, 1997). Math achievement and educational background of parents, profession of the fathers of a study of grade 6 and 8, profession of mothers at grade 6 and lastly grade level of students in elementary schools are significantly correlated and had a significant effect on students’ performance in mathematics (Tekerek, Yeniterzi & Ercan, 2011). It was found that parents who had a high school diploma and higher education, assist their children with assignments and provide emotional support towards their child’s education. In the reviewed literature, peer support was needed for academic excellence in mathematics, as well as teachers support and parents support. The higher the assistance provided the better students’ performance in mathematics. Parents and teachers provided support to his/her child and they played a significant role in academic performance of students, especially in mathematics. Summary of literature review: As can be seen in the literature review, different countries found factors and experiences that contribute significantly to students’ academic performance in mathematics. Student-related factors such as Grit, demographic factors, cognitive ability and personal efficacy and students’ support system contribute in many ways to students’ academic performance. The studies reviewed showed that students negative attitude, low motivation, low interest, low self-conceptualization and actualization, and improper students’ support systems negatively contribute to students’ low performance in mathematics. Parents played an enormous role of nurturing, motivating, protecting and providing security for the growth of child development; therefore, they affect students’ academic performance. Teachers are seen to be a provider of the environment and creator of activities for students to be able to perform. Students contribute significantly to their academic achievement and success as well as to their failure and low performance. Students’ intrinsic motivation, interest, attitudes, motivation, and effort overall affect academic performance (Eyup, 2015). Family characteristics, school support systems, and peer mentorship were significant predictors of students’ academic performance in mathematics in these past studies. The findings of these multiple studies reviewed evidently support the aim and objective of this study, which is to find out factors and experiences of students' low academic performance in mathematics, however there were questions left unanswered. Some of these questions are: will the result of these studies show a similar outcome in Belizean context? What factors affect students’ performance in mathematics at the selected school? What systems do we have in place in our educational system to deal with this phenomenon? Chapter Two Methodology Introduction This chapter highlights the research designed used, the reason for selecting the qualitative research approach, type data collection methods (focus group interviews, survey- open-ended questionnaire and drawing of students past and current experiences) and the type method of analysis employed. This research design employed the qualitative research approach along with the reason for selecting it, to be able to explore the factors and experiences of students that affected academic performance in mathematics. This research design gathered the lived experience of students through focus group interviews, open-ended questionnaires and students’ drawing of current and past experience in relation to mathematics. The study used thematic analysis for the result and the discussion or analysis of the results. Research Design In order to obtain an in-depth understanding of factors and experiences affecting students’ academic experience in mathematics, a qualitative study approach was employed for this study. Qualitative research design provides a rich source of information, especially with regards to factors and experiences of students in a mathematics classroom setting. Qualitative research is a process of real-life inquiry that seeks in-depth understanding of social phenomena in its natural setting of an individual (University of Utah, n.d.). It focuses on the “why” and not the “what” to understand the social phenomenon through live-out experiences of human beings every day (Creswell, 2014). Rather than using statistical and logical procedures, the main researcher used the narrative approach to understand the social phenomenon through recorded voices of participants using focus group interviews, open-ended questionnaires and drawing. The voices of the participants were explained through narratives to understand the meaning of their lives and the knowledge was subjective rather than objective (Weis, L., & Fine, M., 2000). In qualitative research, data are gathered through interviews (individual or focus group), open-ended questionnaires and using emergent methods such as drawings, video elicitation, photo elicitation and dance, and/or observations (Creswell, 2014). Participants share their experiences and themes are created using their responses. The data collected is used to tell the story of individuals and groups and to provide an in-depth understanding of their environment. Qualitative research is rooted in the beliefs that there are hidden perceptions of individual’s experiences (Creswell, 2014). Using multiple individual’s and obtaining their perceptions in the study paints a holistic picture of the participants. Qualitative Research Approaches The Purpose of this study is to find out factors and experiences of students that contribute to students’ low academic performance in mathematics. To be able to obtain this goal, the study used the narrative study to tell the story of the participants about their experience and factors that affected them in their academic performance in mathematics. Narrative study is a “spoken or written text giving an account of an event/action or series of events/actions, chronologically connected” (Creswell 2014, p. 67). In this study it is to portray factors and experiences of students through lived out situations encountered in their academic life. In particular, the researcher understood and gained greater knowledge of the extent to which student-related factors and individual’s experiences contributed towards their low performance in mathematics, how their cognitive ability and psychological factors, Grit factors, support factors and demographic factors affect academic achievement in math. Narrative approach is the process of gathering information for the purpose of storytelling. Based on the story told by the participants, the researchers will write a narrative of the factors and experiences of students. Based on Connelly and Clandinin (1990) humans are storytelling creatures who engage in storied lives individually or collectively. Narrative stories are gathered through different forms of data. In this study, focus group interviews and open-ended questionnaires will be used to collect information on factors and experiences, students may have affected them academically in mathematics. As well as individual’s drawings of students lived out and told of past and present experiences. These told stories to the researcher will be created and co-constructed between the researcher and the participants and a story intended to convey the message or points gathered on students-related factors and past and current experience that affected students’ academic performance in mathematics. This narrative study was analyzed through thematic analysis strategy. The analysis was carried using the thematic analysis approach of what the students said on factors and experiences that contributed to their academic performance. The nature of telling the story of these students is to express the factors and experiences that affected students from generation to generation and what factors have contributed to their success and failures. The story is directed to the parents, teachers, administrators, the school board and the ministry of education. Additional to the thematic analysis, visual analysis was carried out of images or drawings interpreting images alongside an explanation given by the participants. These stories are heard and shaped in a chronological manner, conveyed when individuals talk about their experiences and their lives. These students spoke about their past and present experiences which will be told in that fashion. Based on the stories told and the themes created, these messages are relayed through similarities, differences, and coherence. Data Collection Methods In order to answer these questions, a total of 200 students are selected. Annually 20% of students failed mathematics from a population of 1000 students. This will be 200 students from first to fourth form. These students are either repeated for failing more than four subjects or ask to recuperate in mathematics and other subjects to be qualified to be promoted to another level, or even given his/her diploma. Out of a population of 200 students, a quarter will be selected which account to be 50 students will be purposefully selected for the sample in this research. Ten students will be purposefully selected to participate in the focus group interview and 40 students to answer an open ended questionnaire. Open ended questionnaires will be used to gather students’ experiences and factors that affect students’ performance in mathematics. A focus group will also be used to gather students’ experience where a semi-structured model of interviewing will be used. Traditional Method A focus group interview for 10 students purposefully selected out of 50 students from school x and an open-ended questionnaire will be given to the other 40 students to find out what factors are affecting them to perform low in mathematics. For the focus group interview, the student’s name will be listed alphabetically using the first name and every 5 persons’ name will be selected. Focus group interviews were used to gather the views of students, because of time constraints. Students discussed their views in a focus group for three reasons. Firstly, for logistical reasons, all students will be gathered in one classroom to share their experiences, instead meeting them one-to-one. Secondly, it will allow the researcher to gather students in less time, given that the same concern surrounding openness and honesty was less relevant. Thirdly, it was felt that focus groups would give students greater confidence and allow them to discuss their issues at greater length. Additionally, it was felt that focus groups would be of benefit to a greater number, and that less forthcoming students could still be encouraged to express their views with some prompting. It is important for selected students to share their opinions and experiences in mathematics. All students' input will be important, especially the ones who have negative experiences in mathematics. It is important to determine what get them to this stage in having serious problems in mathematics. Having a focus group interview and open-ended survey will grasp every experience, since this is a small research, which will represent overall students who have negative experiences in mathematics. Once the questionnaire responses are gathered back and after the focus group interviews, these transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis. Emergent Method Drawings will be used to determine students' past and present experiences in mathematics, and students will be asked to explain what they’re drawing represent. It will also be used to determine how they visualize themselves in math classes. Recruitment Participants were recruited from High School X from second to fourth form via purposive sampling, with the aim of holding a discussion with students from a wide range of demographic backgrounds, and gender. Letters were sent to parents in the first week of November 2019. Individual participants received no compensation for their contribution. One school was used in this research from the city of Belmopan. Open-ended questionnaire/Focus group interview schedule Focus group interview was conducted in the second week of November, 2019. One researcher was involved in the data collection for this project, as well as the focus group interview was facilitated by one researcher. Before the focus group interview began, all participants were informed about the nature of the study, and what topics for the discussion to be. Written consent was received from each participant and they were informed that the discussion would be audio recorded and they could decide to stop the focus group interview at any time. Students were asked to respect each other’s point of view, but were encouraged to voice their opinion should they differ from someone else. Semi-structured mode of data collection was used in favor of structure or unstructured modes, as these allowed the researcher to maintain a degree of control, while allowing flexibility in the question order and not restricting the discussion to the researchers’ preconceived understanding of these issues (that is allowing for important but unforeseen topics to be discussed). Students were first asked about their thoughts on psychological factors and cognitive ability in relation to mathematics, followed by existing support systems, then Grit factors and finally demographic factors affecting individual performance in mathematics. For scheduling purposes, 45 minutes to an hour was suggested by the researchers for the discussion. The open ended questionnaire was given to 40 students in the first week of November and collected the second week of November. It followed a similar format as that of the focus group where the first questions were grouped into themes, psychological and cognitive ability, support systems, Grit and demographic factors. Students were asked to answer the questions truthfully. After collecting the research questionnaire, the data gathered were placed into themes for easy analysis. Method of analysis Audio recordings were transcribed by the lead researcher and placed into themes. The method of analysis was largely based upon the guidance provided by Braun and Clarke (2006). A thematic analytic approach was chosen as it is flexible yet detailed analytic technique. Analysis was essentially realistic and semantic in nature, aiming to capture the perceived realities of experiences explicitly stated by the participant. This approach was chosen to identify the consciously held perception of participants and how these perceptions consciously shaped their behavior. Themes were selected and structured using a theoretical approach, meaning that coding was approached with specific questions in mind. Sub-themes were identified by the researchers through a thorough reading of each transcript. Once a preliminary thematic map had been produced, the transcript and coded items were reviewed to check and improved upon the thematic map validity. Chapter three Narratives on Factors and experiences of students Introduction This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of students’ perception and experiences of factors that affect students’ academic performance in mathematics. It challenges the assumption that students’ past experiences made them the students of who they are currently. Although their experiences are different and varied, there are commonalities in the students’ experiences in the classroom and factors that affected them in their academic life to perform low in mathematics. These commonalities were used to create the themes for this study. These themes were clustered around factors and experiences that affected academic performance of students in mathematics such as external factors and internal self-driven, psychological factors. The sub-themes of factors affecting students’ low performance were based upon their main concerns or perceptions shared such on students-related, teacher related, individual past and present experiences in mathematics such as demographic, Grit, personal efficacy and cognitive ability, teachers’ and parents’ support and teachers’ personality, pedagogical styles and teaching strategies(training). The sub-themes of students-related factors were chosen based on the most commonly mentioned determinants of their views or experiences; namely answering questions in the focus group interview, open-ended questionnaire and drawings on factors of personality efficacy and cognitive ability, demographic factors, Grit, and proper support systems. Each of these themes and sub-themes shall now be discussed in succession. Figure 1 Thematic Map of student-related factors affecting students’ low performance in mathematics. Student- related factors overview Several students believe that they contribute significantly to their academic performance in mathematics since their attitude, motivation, interest, self-efficacy, cognitive ability, courage, passion, perseverance, self-actualization and self-conceptualization affect them negatively or positively. However, some students don’t believe that demographic factors affect them academically and some believed that demographic factors do affect performance in mathematics. On the contrary majority agreed and explained that student-related factors, therefore have a heavy influence over their success and failures in mathematics. These were broken using three sub-themes, the demographic, grit, and personal efficacy and cognitive ability factors, which negatively or positively affected students in their academic achievements. Below are the stories of students of how they contribute to their academic performance in mathematics Student-related: demographic factors Students’ perceptions of how good they are at mathematics based on gender varies in the second form, however, at third and fourth form are similar. In the second form, majority of the students believe that females are better in mathematics, on the contrary students at the senior level of third and fourth form believe that gender has nothing to do with academic performance in mathematics. Similarly, as that of localities of address such as rural and urban. Students in second form believe that rural or village students outperform city or urban students. As Jane put it, “I think mostly female students are good at math because males don’t really like school and don’t like to practice mathematics.” On the contrary, some of the participants think that male is far better off in mathematics and rural students are better at math than urban students. As John from the second form explained, “males are better in math and I have a lot of male friends who are good at math and my mom is not good at math but my dad is.” Students from the senior level of high school think that both male and female students are good at mathematics and it is your attitude and interest towards the subject that determine how you perform. As a 3rd year student explained, “I believe that both males and females can both be good at math because it’s not your gender it’s your mind towards the subject.” Another fourth year student asserted and I quote “I believe anyone can be good at math as long as they practice it and do not be afraid.” Based on the responses collected, many students from second form are of the similar view as that of their classmate and on the contrary students in the senior class believe otherwise. Students were also asked questions on their perception on who is good in mathematics, on location. It was noted that students’ responses differ and vary, students from the second form believed that students who lived in the villages can focus more on their school work whereas students from the city have more distractions. As John explained, “Village people have less distractions than city kids. We hardly have phones and Facebook.” Senior students have different perceptions, they believe that location or address have nothing to do with your academic performance in mathematics. On the contrary, students with more resources can always research the concept they did not understand but asserted that the resources have to be used wisely. As John puts it, “village life is good just as city life. In a village life we can focus and study more but without the internet we are at a disadvantage and for city kids they have the internet and can research more but they have more distractions, but I think they should use it wisely.” With this view, location has a lot to do with students’ performance and it depends heavily on how the resources are used. Several responses were transcribed and there are many similarities. Here are a few of what is shared and some commonalities or differences. A 2nd form student stated, “I not really sure but I think village people why because city people don’t like school so.” A 3rd form student stated, “I think that it doesn’t matter where you live or go to school as long as you are interested you will like the subject.” A 4th Form student, commented that “I am from a village and I like math because I can encompass it in everything I do, even sports but everyone has different opinion.” In summary, the perception of lower level students compared to upper level students varies significantly in terms of students’ performance in mathematics. Some students believe that females are better off in mathematics, similarly as that of the male students. Additionally, location or address has an impact on academic performance in mathematics and students believe that resources need to be used for the right purpose. Therefore, demographic factors such as gender and location responses vary to affect academic performance in mathematics. Personal efficacy and cognitive ability Personal efficacy and cognitive ability are factors related to students’ individual beliefs in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific personal attainments (Bandura, 1997). It is the ability to exert control over one’s own attitude, motivation, interest, ability to problem solving, critical thinking, applicability of concepts and social environment. The first question students were asked is what they want to be in the future. Students' responses vary, some students said that they want to be an engineer, accountant, teacher, lawyer and be an entrepreneur. Students were further questioned in the focus group interview, as to how will math be related to the career they want to be in the future. Many students responded that it has a lot to do with it. As Andrew explained, “engineering has a lot of mathematics and it is the reason why I continue to work hard at it, however, Mathew, an accountant, asserts her point that “In accounting, only a few mathematics I will need in accounting, I don’t see how algebra, functions and trigonometry to do with accounting.” In view of this, students' understanding of the need for these topics in mathematics is irrelevant to the required knowledge in mathematics. This is somewhat true to the extent that students will need only basic mathematics and everyone is trained using the same criteria. On the contrary, a classroom of size 30 will have different views, however, in public school or education, an individual's interest, concern or views cannot be addressed. As the students whose goal is to be a teacher and engineer, asserts that the courses offered in high school will only give a general idea of what mathematics offered in mathematics. Jane explained: “everyone wants to be someone unique, but schools cannot offer individual needs, we need to study and pass that’s all.” This view supports that not all needs will be met in an educational system and students turn to a negative attitude towards mathematics because of this. As Jane also explained, “I have some friends that turn away from mathematics because of this, too many things to study and they already know what they want to be.” Several students further explained that their views are never listened to, and explained by John, “every time we tell our teacher that the concept is difficult, the teacher still teaches it and moves on to another concept, whether students get it or not.” This concern was shared among all the participants. As John questioned, “how can I learn the other concept, when most of the time, it depends on the other topic?” Several students believe that when they like the subject they develop good attitude, interest, motivation and willingness to learn the subject. Several participants shared this view, as Jane explained, “when mathematics gets difficult we lose motivation, interest, attitude get worse and when it gets easy again, we see the light again, sir.” This statement also has the view that participants’ negative attitude, lack of interest, demotivated and unwilling to learn mathematics significantly affect their performance negatively. Another view indicates that participants only do the minimum to pass, it doesn’t matter what teachers do, their mindset is fixed and they just want to pass mathematics. As a student explained, “long time I started not to like mathematics, from then on I didn’t try harder, I just want to pass.” Another student commented, “Math is not made for me, I am not good at math, I don’t see how I can change.” Additionally, another student said, “I am born not to be good in mathematics.” This indicates that there are underlying problems that made them get to this stage. Several participants believe that they are naturally born not to be good in mathematics and it doesn’t matter what the teacher does, their aim is solely to get a passing mark and if they fail, repeat and try again for another year. Several students do not believe that mathematics is for everyone, and that is the reason why other studies exist. These participants are students who perform low in mathematics and although mathematics is their favorite subject, they failed the subject because of the inconsistency of practicing the subject. For example, a second form student said that “My favorite subject is math and science. On the weekends I sometimes practice and study,”, he further explained that since his failure in second form, he started to work harder and is now passing. Several students shared the same view in both the open-ended questionnaire and focus group interviews, where students don’t want to repeat again or do a summer class. It is important that they try harder and focus so that they can pass. Another response was from a 3rd year student, “My favorite subject is principles of accounts (POA) because it is a very interesting subject and I find it amazing that it is very easy to learn and the practical comes to me with ease. There are not too many formulas to deal with like math. On the weekends I would review the work the I don’t really understand from during the week, but I don’t like math.” This response from this student signify that students mentally closed down to certain subjects and that affected them negatively academically. They are open to subjects that they want to learn, for example, accounting is a math-related subject but doesn’t require a lot of equations. Another driving force found to have an effect on personal efficacy on mathematics is the area students want to study in the future. Many students who responded who are not focusing on math-related future professions don't like or see the relevance of mathematics. As a fourth year student, explained, “I wish to be a chemical engineer or a marine biologist if not I continue a career in football. I study an hour and a half in the morning and in the night, but in between I work out physically, running, weight lifting, etc. and I am trying my best in mathematics.” This student is still trying hard to practice mathematics, although he did not excel in the subject and did a summer class to be promoted to another level. Students acknowledge that mathematics is difficult and that they need to work hard and do their best in being successful in mathematics. Several students responded that they are giving up in the subject based on the level of difficulty in third and fourth form. A second year student asserted that, “sometimes I forget to practice before the quiz and I forget to do some of my work and also I was sick for a while.” Another response from a third year student where she said that, “mathematics requires a lot of things to know, and I think that I will not really need all what they are giving us.” A viewpoint from a fourth form student said, “Maybe I don’t push too much, sometimes I don’t practice enough I believe. My teacher moves a little fast.” Students were asked what would make students fail mathematics and they were able to answer by listing many psychological factors and cognitive abilities such as lack of focus, lack of practice, lack of interest, lack of comprehension all around disliking the subject. A second form student said that, “students should pay attention, if they don’t pay attention and keep on practicing they will fail math.” A third form student said that “students would fail mathematics because of their attitude towards the subject or the teacher or because of influence or if they may be a little slow and have no help.” A fourth form student said, “The subject is hard, don’t practice or study math and have no interest.” Finally, students shared their experiences in regards to cognitive ability, where several shared that their brain is not made for critical thinking and problem solving and that when they reach this, they often catch headaches. Many shared experiences as they see a math problem they forget everything. As Liz explained, “as soon as my teacher put a word problem on the board, everything is new, I just don’t want to do it, even if I am forced to do it, I just closed myself. I think I am not made to do critical thinking.” In addition, Tom commented, “why do they make mathematics? I just cannot put things together, I don’t see how one problem is similar to the other, I always ask my teacher to guide me, but in a quiz that cannot happen, sir.” This perception of students explained how this factor significantly affects academic performance, since the majority of the content in mathematics is problem solving which requires critical thinking. In summary, personal efficacy such as attitude, motivation, interest and will, based on shared experiences affect students’ performance negatively or positively. Similar to cognitive ability, where students believe that they need to be good in mathematics or made for mathematics to be able to do problem solving and critical thinking. Student-related: Grit factors Another shared experience from students participating is the factors of Grit, which affect students’ academic performance, which is similar to personal efficacy. Merriam- Webster dictionary defines grit as firmness of character, indomitable spirit and perseverance and passion for long term goals. For any study courage is hard to measure, ability to manage fear of failure is needed, which becomes a predictor of success through students’ perception (Lebowitz, 2016). Students were asked if they have the passion to deal with math and are you fearless or bold to do any kind of math? Students’ responses are gathered and they provide a lot of information on how this contributes to success or failure academically in mathematics. A second form student, who did summer class to be promoted to second form claimed and said, “I have the passion to deal and study mathematics and I am bold to study any type of mathematics.”, however, he was further questioned, why they did you failed and had to do summer class, in which he responded and said that, “although I like math, sir, doesn’t mean that I am good at it, sometimes in the quizzes that we get, I didn’t prepare well.” This signified that there is no relationship between students who like mathematics and their performance. On the contrary, some students also shared the view that once you have the courage, perseverance, spirit and character to deal with mathematics, you will perform good academically. As a third form commented, “I see students who have the courage, spirit and character to do mathematics and they excel but like me I don’t have the courage, perseverance and character, I don’t expect good results.” Another view is where students have to have all or majority of the grit factors to be able to be good in mathematics. A third form student said, “I have the interest, but lack the passion, I know that it is an important subject so I try my best to pass, but it is not something that I would love to do.” A fourth form student said, “Yes I have a passion for math just that my teacher made me dislike and I am fearful and afraid to do any kind of mathematics.” In terms of Grit, there are factors highly perceived to affect academic performance. As seen from students’ responses, that there can be the interest but lack the passion and there can be the perseverance, however, teachers affected them to perform low academically in mathematics. Students were asked when mathematics seems difficult, when it knocks you down, what do you do to keep on going? There was a positive response to this question as the majority said that they would pick them self-up and go back to trying again. A second form student explained,” I would tell myself to keep trying harder and study more.” Several students shared similar stories, after a quiz, when they received their result back, even if they fail, they tell themselves to keep going at it. This result shows that they have the perseverance to continue, but as some explained that most of the time, there is no support from teachers and peers. As a student in third form, responded, “when I asked my teacher for support, they told me they are busy, the same as my friends who are good at math, gave me the same response, I don’t know who to do.” A third form student respond similarly, that is, “think positive and try my best”, and a fourth form student said, and I quote, “telling myself that this is the last year and want to get out of this place.” Most students shared that the Grit factors exist, however, the support system is not available. Students were also asked, how much passion and perseverance they have towards their life goals, and many answered that whatever they want in life, they have to work hard for it. They are willing to sacrifice themselves to do better, focus on what is relevant, however some are negative. Some of these comments are similar and to provide one example from each level, here it is, a fourth year student said that he didn’t have much passion and perseverance towards his lifetime goals. On the positive side a second form student said he didn’t get distracted easily, which is shared similarly by a third form student, whose lifetime goals as a pharmacist is what give her the passion and perseverance to press on towards her life goal. As a student from second form commented, “I want to be an accountant and I will do my best to achieve what I want”, and a third form has the same view, and she explained, “I will work hard at everything, sometimes, we face challenges and hope that we can get help to assist us.” In summary, based on shared experiences in mathematics from students, their grit somewhat affected their academic performance in mathematics. It is interesting to note that students can have the interest but no passion affected them negatively towards academic performance. It is of their view that they can have the perseverance, but that is not enough to do good in mathematics, however, their drive towards their goal is what will make them continue to work harder, however, a support system is needed. Teacher-related factors Teacher-related factors are support systems offered by teacher’s such as mentorship programs, tutorial services and teachers’ pedagogical styles, teaching styles and training and personality that affect students positively or negatively towards mathematics. Students shared their experience through the traditional method of focus group interview and open-ended questionnaire. Many information was gathered that affected students negatively to turn them away from the subject of mathematics. There was a student who commented that the course content affected him based on delivery by teachers. Majority of the students lamented that teachers' teaching styles, techniques and strategies affected them significantly towards the subject. Below are some expressed views: a fourth form student said that, “my mom just wants me to pass regardless of the subject, I acknowledge my discomfort just this year because of new topics, all I want to know is to count money, I don’t see why teachers have to make me learn these topics.” Some other comments came that students’ parents did not go to school, therefore they were unable to help them in their studies, where a student commented, “my parents were not able to help me what my teacher teaches me.” Some students believe that it is the teacher that has a significant effect on their performance negatively or positively. For example, one student put it, and I quote, “My teacher made me turn down mathematics, my teacher cannot teach mathematics, my grade went down since he started teaching me in third form and my teacher made me dislike mathematics, he told me that mathematics is hard and is made for a few.” This story was shared by third and fourth form students where they believed that teachers' attitude significantly affected their performance. This student was affected negatively but also there were students who responded on the contrary, and I quote, “last year in second form, I was horrible at mathematics and this year, I finally understand, my previous teacher moves too quickly and my teacher now made me understand mathematics.” This story shows that the previous teacher was not able to get to them through their pedagogical styles and teaching techniques, however, when moved to another level with another math teacher, they were able to do well. Students also shared that teachers’ negative attitude in not answering all questions affected them significantly. A student from the second form commented, “My teacher tell me I am not good at mathematics, but when I ask her questions, she doesn't want to answer it, as when I asked for extra help, she doesn’t have time.” Teacher’s personality had a significant effect on students’ academic performance as shared by students from third form positively or negatively. As shared by a third form student, “in the second form, my teacher moved quickly through the subjects without us understanding the concepts, but now my teacher goes by what we understand.” Similar stories were shared among the 23 respondents on the survey and focus group interview where students explained that some mathematics teachers moved too quickly to be able to complete the course outline. As students shared that many of the teachers don’t review the basic concepts and think that everyone knows the concept. As Jane explained, “My teacher from second form, he hurries through the course and some of us can’t catch up.” Another third form student commented “My teacher moves fast and talks fast and when we ask him to move slower, he tells us to write faster.” A fourth form similarly commented, “although we are in fourth form, our math teacher thinks that we are slow and most of the time don’t understand.” Pedagogical styles, teaching strategies and training has somewhat affected academic performance. Some students view that math teachers know a lot of the content but lack the delivery. As explained by a fourth form student, “My teacher moves from one topic to the next, next week we are here and the other week we are somewhere else, how do I learn like that?” students view that teachers don’t measure if the objective was met and how they are able to move from one concept to the next. Some participants view that teachers don’t use a student-centered approach where mostly, the teacher is the one talking. As shared by a fourth year student, “My teacher just talks, talks, and sometimes doesn't ask questions, if we have questions, it is left unanswered.” Several shared similar experiences where the teacher was not able to address questions and move from one concept to the next believing that everyone understood. Drawings on past and current experiences in mathematics Using the emergent method of students drawing, participants were asked to draw pictures of their mathematics life in second form if they are now in third form and also their life in third form, from this method, students were able to share many unknown experiences not expressed in the focus group interview and the open-ended questionnaire. Through this method students expressed their experiences graphically and shared how many questions were left unanswered while the past class and similarly as that of the current class. From the drawings the ten students selected drew pictures representing their past and current experiences. This showed that some of them their past experience in mathematics were very good, drawing smiley faces, however, in the level they are in, they drew puzzled faced and this also showed the reciprocal happening, where students are happy with the content and understanding the concept and in their previous experience it was negative towards their overall performance in mathematics. Here are the ten drawing and the narrative of these drawings from students: The first student was asked to write explaining what is the significance of her drawing. Student one, Disha explained, “The first picture shows me in a very difficult situation. I was failing most of my quizzes, tests, exams, etc. I was always stressed about math. To me math was just a bunch of confusing numbers. I got to the point where I hated math to the extreme. To me math was confusing. I also didn’t care about doing any work for this subject because I didn’t even understand.” In the focus group interview, student Disha, was asked to explain her drawings further. She explained, “In the second form, math was hard, my teacher moved too fast, I had no more motivation, interest and the will to continue in academics. Thank God, I did summer and was promoted.” The concepts to her were too absurd and challenging, she did not understand a thing in mathematics. She further expounded that as she encountered mathematics she had a headache. She also explained that any work in mathematics, she always leaves it blank. The same student also explained her current experience of being in third form. She explained that it is totally different. She explained that her picture represents what she became now. A totally transformed student from last year. With unbelief she expressed that she never knew that she can get 80% and above in mathematics. Disha elaborates, “The second picture shows me in a totally different situation I at least passed all or most of my evaluations. I started to understand the math problems day by day. I started to enjoy math much more. I did my work in class. I also participated in class more. I was getting better at the problem in math. I started to appreciate math and understand why math was so important in our daily life. Math was also very important in any career field. For me math is getting easier day by day. These were my 2 different experiences in math.” In the focus group interview Disha was asked to add anything left out in her explanation, she willingly said “my teacher now explains better. He is able to answer my questions if I have. He is more understanding and friendly. He makes us laugh. He is good. Now I can say that I am clearer and have interest and passion in mathematics. Now I don’t leave my paper blank, like before. Before I do a problem, that will be a lot. I think teacher teaching style and attitude has a lot to do with understanding math.” The second student from third form, Matt shared a similar view as that of Disha. In his previous experience, He wrote that “I was sad because I found math hard and boring. I couldn’t do math problems.” This student experience highlighted that when mathematics got difficult, he got frustrated and could not focus, he lost grit. In the focus group interview, he explained “Last year, mathematics is really difficult. I couldn’t understand. I gave up. When I think of mathematics, it made me cry, because I know I cannot do it.” He further explained “my last teacher cannot teach and made me not able to do math. When I asked him to explain, He don’t want to. I gave up.” In his current experience he shared a totally different experience. This student was able to transform from one individual to the next. Matt wrote, “I found it very interesting and fascinating. Math is cool now it is one of my favorite subjects.” When he was asked to explain the glass, he commented, “I feel like I can do math without seeing clearly. I feel I can do any mathematics now. My teacher now made me learn math. I feel good now. My attitude and interest changed. Last year, I didn’t know that this could happen.” From the two students' experience, although one was from the school from the second form and one was transferred from another school, they shared a similar experience. I showed that teachers can have a significant effect on their performance. Student four drew The third student, a girl from third form who repeated last year drew that she had a lot of problems in the same form last year. She was not able to understand the concept. She wrote, “My last experience was horrible. All my tests and quiz were failing grades. Not to say that it is difficult. I thought that there would never be an answer for x+y =?. I had a lot of stress. Not to mention the exam I did horrible. I lost interest but seeing math gives problems.” She was asked, if the teacher has anything to do with her performance last year in math, and her response was, “sir, I had the same teacher last year and this year I am doing better, so I don’t think so. I was not focused last year, someone distracted me and I was forced to be in school. Also my parents were going through a separation.” She explained in the focus group interview that many things distracted her and she was not interested in school. No one was helping me deal with my issue.” This fourth student, did not blame the teacher but herself and acknowledge that teachers will try their best, however if a student don’t want to learn, it will be to no avail. The third student shared that her second drawing was a change in attitude, interest, courage and willingness to think critically and problem solve. She changed from a student who didn't care to willingness to learn. In her explanation, she wrote, “I pass my math work well right now. Everything is good. I understand everything that is being taught. I finally understand what is given and I know what to perfectly do.” She later clarified that many things were happening in her life last year and she was not able to cope with school work overall. She couldn’t focus, since her mom left her with her dad. She asserted that she tried at the end but it was not enough to have her pass. Currently, she started to work hard and would not want to repeat again, since she will not be allowed to repeat in the same school. The fourth student, named Marv drew the picture on the left, below, from his previous experience. At that time, he was a student from first form, however was promoted to second form on probation and passed summer class in mathematics. He wrote “When I was in first form I was lost because I don’t know what mathematics problem the teacher will teach us.” In the focus group, he explained, “my teacher moves too fast that I could not catch up. I was also absent a lot of times. My friends were too noisy and my teacher could not control the class. He further expounded, “when I came into first form, my teacher from standard six was not able to teach us math. I did poorly in mathematics. I felt that I could pass without trying like what I did in primary school. I failed, I did math summer class for two weeks and I tell myself then that I will always try my best.” This drawing on the right represents Marv experience in second form. This he explained how he became a different student, as that of last year. He explained and wrote, “In first form I had many distractions but in second form, I don’t let my friends distract me. I don’t want to recuperate one more time, as we are allowed to recuperate one time for the four years at this school. My teacher also helped me in understanding the concept more and my grades went up. I can do math now and I have interest and courage to do math. If I don’t understand I do further search online.” He also wrote, “Now in math I’m concentrated. It feels easy for me because my teacher is teaching food. I am also smart in math.” He further explained that attitude and lack of interest has a lot to do with his previous performance and when he changes his attitude, his grades made a drastic change. Student lived experience range from one to the next but have commonalities. As was previously mentioned, students can change their attitude towards mathematics, there will be a drastic change in their academic life. A second form student wrote on his previous experience in mathematics, and said, “In the Past I didn’t understand that much. It was very hard at first. I got to learn a little bit after that and the math teacher started to teach really fast so it was really hard to keep up with but the second form was way harder.” She also explained in the focus group that in first form she has so many questions on how to solve problems but were left unanswered. Most of the time the teacher does not answer questions and move too fast. The teacher moves quickly to the level of the fast learners and she asserted that the teacher left the other students frustrated and uninterested. Past experience Current experience In the picture below, her current experience in second form is quite similar but was able to learn at the current form she is in. She explained “My present experience is very fast to learn and a little bit hard also but the teacher teaches a little bit fast but I understand it more or less. It is really hard but once you listen you’re going to understand.” In the focus group discussion, she was asked to explain further, because in her written statement, she said that both experiences, the teacher teaches fast and in second form, she is doing well. She explained and noted the following, “My previous teacher teaches too fast, and doesn’t explain well, doesn’t engage the class but my previous teacher teaches fast but he explains well and has the students active in the lesson.” Her perception of two similar teachers, however a few characteristics and teaching style of the two differs. She was able to learn although both teachers teach fast. In the picture below, this participant from second form, expressed and wrote, “in the past few years, I wasn’t able to fully understand the different problems in math. There were things that I couldn’t understand.” During the interview he was asked to elaborate on his written explanation. He commented, “sir, I used to struggle in math, I found a lot of difficulty and was not able to understand many things last year. My teacher moves very fast and I was not able to understand everything. I continued trying hard and I only needed a few points to pass. I recuperated in math during the summer and now I am in second form.” Another question was asked to him about his nationality, and he responded, “sir not all Taiwanese are good at math. We struggle too sir.” This student believes that all types of students based on nationality and color face difficulty in mathematics. He explained that when a teacher moves too quick, many are left behind. In his current experience he has a different perception and based on his drawing below, he explained that “In the present day, I am able to interpret and comprehend the different problems in math.” He was later asked what does the hand on the beard signify, he explained, “sir math is fun, and now I see the real reason for math, I am happy and want to learn more. I see that math develops interest in me but I want to know more. The teacher teaches very well and explains well. Now I see myself doing good in math.” From the picture below, a fourth form explained that she was not good in mathematics for a long time and this has started from primary school. She struggled a lot in mathematics and wrote the following as an explanation to her drawing, “Math has never been my area of expertise so sometimes I would struggle in grasping certain information on the math work. I would need a broken down explanation in simple terms. Also a person solving the problem step by step while pausing to explain.” In the third form she claimed that the concepts were not fully understood and that teachers need to move along with students. She asserts that there are too much to learn in math, however, teachers should be mindful of the students’ abilities in mathematics. In her current experience while in fourth form, it has been a wonderful experience and she understands more what is being taught. On her drawings explanation, she wrote, “Now as a fourth year in high school I have a better understanding of the math work that is taught. I struggle less and my grades are improving in math. I may not be an ‘A’ student but at least I have reached a ‘B+’ area.” In her view, third year was not a good year for her than fourth year, she claimed that, “a lot of my friends were distracting, demotivating, faster than me in third form and this is the class teachers don’t want to go in.” She claimed that students bully others and her class was a difficult class to manage by teachers. Another student from fourth form drew a picture on her year in third form and fourth form. Both pictures are similar in nature. This student believes that she is naturally slow in math and believes that she has a learning disability. In her current experience picture, she wrote, “Math was very confusing for me last year a little when I missed ….. was teaching us. When Ms. …. started to teach us I learnt a little better.” In her current experience she shared a similar view and wrote, “math is still very confusing for me this year. And I have to watch a math antics video to understand. And I do learn it only for no more than 3 days in my brain, then I’ll forget completely how to do the work.” She explained during the interview that she understands in class, but when a quiz was given, she forgot everything. She said, “sir my brain was not made for math. I think giving us the examples during a test or quiz will help.” This has been a student who struggled throughout her life in mathematics and she later explained that when her dad died when she was nine, she started to face problems in mathematics. She asserted that she is holding to her dad’s memories and cannot understand how he would leave suddenly like that. She is always worrying about her dad and most of the time she would go on the roof to share a common practice that she had with her dad. In the last drawing a third form student shared her lived experience in math in her previous year and her current year. She wrote that she continues to try harder although her result in her test would be as low as 18%, however she never gave up. She claimed that she was crying for help but no one listened and was all alone. In her current year, she commented that she still faced difficulty but she held a different attitude while in third form. She perceived that it is important to learn the concept, ask questions to the teacher and practice a lot. This has been her situation and she explained that last year, the teacher didn’t like to answer the questions but this year, the teacher answers her question. This has made her lived experience in mathematics different this year. Based on this student’s drawing, she believes that what makes the difference is sitting at the front. She commented, “In my last classes, I usually sit to the back, and now I sit to the front, I can hear the teacher well.” In the focus group interview she was asked why sitting at the front helps? She happily expressed, “many students were distracting last year, I couldn’t stand them, I tried my best to listen, the teacher had to stop and ask for their attention.” She said that she will never sit to the back of the class now as it creates a hindrance to her learning. Chapter four Thematic analysis of factors and experiences of students Introduction The overwhelming message arose from the result of the study on students’ perception that affected low performance was students-related factors such as grit, cognitive abilities or psychological factors, and demographic factors played a significant role in students’ academic low performance. It also showed that teacher-related factors such as, teachers teaching strategies, personality, and pedagogy styles had a significant role on academic performance, as well as there was a need for an academic support system to assist students. These echoed conclusion drawn from several past studies reviewed (Eyup & Elmassah S. Mbugua Kibet, Muthaa & Nkonke G.R., 2015; Micheal & Alsup, 2016, Khana, Singh & Alam, Ramirez, Hooper, Kersting, Ferguson, & Yeager, 2018, Salim, Ahmad, Waini & Miswan, 2017, Edington, Everett & Koehler L., 1987, ,Elmassah, 2009, , Harb, 2006). To answer the question posed by this study, what factors contribute to students’ academic performance and experience in mathematics at a secondary school in Belmopan? Does attitude, motivation, and self-efficacy contribute to students’ academic performance in mathematics? What experiences contribute to students’ low academic performance in mathematics? The most notable conclusions drawn from this study were that attitude, motivation, and some grit factors such as interest and passion has a significant role in shaping the academic life of individual students. Students who have a negative attitude, low motivation and low grit often struggle in mathematics. On the contrary students who have a positive attitude, highly motivated and have high grit factors excel in mathematics, however a few students say otherwise. Nevertheless, this was consistent with the reviewed literature for this study (Edington, Everett & Koehler L., 1987, ,Elmassah, 2009, , Harb, 2006), where students’ attitude, motivation and grit factors contribute significantly towards students’ academic performance. In the past literature, it was noted that unmotivated students, students with negative attitude and low grit factors always struggle academically. The current findings do support the notion that students-related factors affect students’ performance, whether it is negative or positive. Negative experiences contributed significantly to students’ low academic performance in mathematics. Student-related: Demographic Factors The perception of lower level students compared to upper level students varies significantly in terms of students’ performance in mathematics. Some students believe that females are better off in mathematics at the lower level than that of senior students, similarly as that of the male students. Additionally, location or address has an impact on academic performance in mathematics and students believe that resources need to be used for the right purpose. Therefore, demographic factors such as gender and location responses vary to affect academic performance in mathematics. From the students. drawings, facing difficulty in mathematics has nothing to do with nationality. An Asian students assert that they too face difficulties which affect their academic performance if they don’t understand the concept. But this is heavily due to the teacher's pace of lesson delivery. Student-related: personal efficacy and cognitive ability Personal efficacy and cognitive ability are factors related to the ability to exert control over one’s own attitude, motivation, interest, ability to problem solving, critical thinking, applicability of concepts and social environment. From the individuals shared experience, lack of practice, family issues, subject difficulty, course content and teachers teaching strategies and personality is what affects students to change attitude, motivation, interest which affect low performance in mathematics. Additionally, students perceive a notion in relation to cognitive ability that they are not made like everyone else, mathematics critical thinking and problem solving are for students who are gifted in mathematics. In addition, a student shared that her brain is not able to remember a lot of information over a long period of time and this is what affected low performance. Student-related: Grit Merriam- Webster dictionary defines grit as firmness of character, indomitable spirit and perseverance and passion for long term goals. The research findings suggest that grit may be as important as other measures of intelligence to high achievement and success in life but it is not a composite factor to students’ low performance in mathematics. Grit requires a sustained effort and interest in goals, notwithstanding failure, lack of progress and feedback, and difficulty and this has been the driving force in students to press on in a mathematics class, although there are difficulty, challenges and obstacles to reach their goal in life. As expressed by students, they will continue to work harder, pressing on and try harder in math class to be able to achieve their life time goals. What they see that go against this is the irrelevant concept that is in the mathematics curriculum which they see has no individualized long term benefit. Students shared that they can have the interest but no passion for the subject which they perceive to have an impact on low performance. Personal efficacy has a significant effect on students’ grit. With the right attitude, motivation and interest, students will have grit to achieve higher in mathematics. Additionally, with the right personality of teachers and teachers teaching style, students will be grittier and will be highly successful in any math classes. Students will persevere and have the passion to aim greater in mathematics. Teacher- related factors: Teacher-related factors are teachers’ personality, teaching strategies and pedagogical styles that might have affected students’ academic performance in mathematics. Teaching strategies are direct instruction, indirect instruction, independent study and experimental learning in which teachers used to convey information and facilitate learning(Worldview.com, n.d.). Most of the shared experience of students that math teachers mainly used direct instruction where all information is passed to them. It is conducted in a way where all students move to the teacher's pace rather than looking at the ability of students in class. This created a major problem for mixed group students since only the fast learners are able to understand the information presented (Banks, 2016). Majority of the students expressed that they often face severe problems to cope in understanding the present concept, which mainly rely on the previous taught concept. Pedagogy styles or skills is defined as the art of teaching, which involves conveying knowledge, and skills in ways that students can understand, remember and apply which involves classroom management(wisegeek.com, n.d.). Many of the participants’ view that teachers know their concept, but lack the art of teaching. Students are left behind and not able to catch up which teachers were not able to convey the required knowledge in mathematics and the skills needed to move on to another topic. Additionally, participants shared that their previous experience was one that has to deal with classroom management. Teachers were not able to take control of their class in which students at the back suffered and only the high performers were able to understand. Many students shared that they felt giving up, lack of interest build up, low motivation and negative attitude was created because of no classroom management of teachers. As explained by Owlcation.com, great teachers’ personalities are: expert in communication, good listener, knowledgeable and passionate about the subject, build good relationships, friendly and approachable, excellent preparation and organizational skills, strong work ethic and have high expectations for all students. Students perceived factors that affect low academic performance were: they were not able to get their message across, don’t listen to students concerns or questions, don’t build good relationships with students, unfriendly, unapproachable and don’t have high expectations for each and every student. Mostly teachers work hard in achieving the course syllabus, without looking at the human element in the classroom. Students are left on their own to understand the concept and their questions are always left unanswered. In several stories given by students, when they ask for assistance, it was not provided and students felt alone in the math academic world. When moving from their previous class to their current class, students experience a drastic change in behavior in which they shared that teachers’ personality, teaching styles and pedagogical skills have a significant effect on their academic performance. Additionally, students shared that teachers’ negative personality, pace of instruction was too fast and lack of classroom management significantly contributed to low academic performance. In summary, teachers were not able to get to the students effectively because of lack of classroom management, use solely direct instruction and develop no relationship with students were contributing factors to low academic performance in mathematics. Limitations of the Study The result of the study focused solely on perception of students on factors and experiences encountered by low performing students, therefore the result cannot be used to represent the view of high achieving students on academic performance. The result of this study cannot be used to evaluate factors affecting students’ performance in other high schools in the country of Belize as the result represents only one school. This study used only low performing students’ perception to find out factors that affect academic performance and in the future other researchers could also look at perception of teacher and parents and a combination of these factors to assess hol study of how its impact on students’ academic performance. Also, the scope of the study could be extended to cover more institutions because this study was limited to only one institution. Recommendations From the study teachers, counselors and peers should provide support and counsel students on how they spend their extra time on campus. Parents, peers and teachers as well as administrators should encourage the students to form study groups to help them improve on their academic performance. Students should also be careful in the selection of their peers/friends as it might be a hindrance to their academic performance because good peers/friends are a great influence on academic performance. Due to this peers/friends who are not contributing positively to one’s academic performance should be eliminated by the student. As for the teacher, administrators should focus on professional development on teaching strategies and developing working relationships among students. It is important that in any classroom setting, that all questions be left unanswered and if the majority of the students don’t understand then the teacher should find ways on how to teach over the lesson. Teachers should be more patient and understanding as not all students like mathematics. Conclusion From the analysis, it was evident that not all the factors selected for the study contributed to students’ low academic performance. The study supports the opinions of students' factors such as personal efficacy and cognitive ability, some grit and demographic factors contribute to students’ academic performance. Students who experience low personal efficacy such as low motivation, lack of interest and negative attitude toward math significantly affect low academic performance in mathematics. Likewise, teacher-related factors such as teacher’s personality, teaching strategies and pedagogical styles based on student’s experience in the classroom significantly affect academic performance in mathematics. Teachers who are unfriendly, have no relationship with students and who don’t want to answer questions significantly affect low academic performance in mathematics. Again, the study supports the assertion made by several students that teachers providing assistance to students will affect academic performance and should not be ignored. It is clear that students’ passion and interest have a positive influence on academic performance in mathematics. The study also revealed that not all Grit factors such as perseverance, and courage and demographic factors such as address do not affect low academic performance of students and these contradict the assertion made by previous studies that grit factors such as gender and locality do support academic performance. This also means that students should perform well no matter the locality of where they live. References Acharya, R.B.(2017). Factors affecting difficulties in learning mathematics by mathematics learners. International Journal of Elementary Education 6, 2(8). Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijeedu.20170602.11. Ashcraft, M. H. (2002). Math anxiety: personal, educational, and cognitive consequences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(5). Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00196 Aydın, A., Sarıer, Y. & Uysal, Ş. (2012). 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What are the different types of pedagogical skills? Retrieved from: https://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-types-of-pedagogical-skills.htm Appendix Student focus group questionnaire Name of Informants Date: 11th November, 2019 Location: Belmopan Comprehensive School Current Position: Thank you for agreeing to participate. The study focused on factors affecting students’ low performance in mathematics. All of your answers will strictly be confidential. I am recording the interview so I can have a record of your answers. It will be transcribed and forwarded to you for your review. The interview recording will be destroyed when the project is over. This is all explained in the consent form you were asked to sign Background of the Informant So could you just tell me your first name Tell me about yourself What would best describe your ethnicity? Tel me about your class and form you are in. What you will be studying in the future? Where do you live? What do you do on weekends? Do you review, practice? Study? Just so I know how things work at your school, as a group, could you talk me through the process of which subject is your favorite subject? Why? Demographic Factors Do you believe males or females are good at math? Why? Do you think village people or city students like math? Why? In your class, do you have more males or females? What would make students fail mathematics? Please list General Perceptions: Out of all subjects (not just the ones you are studying), which subjects do you think is the most difficult and why do you think that? On the other end of the scale, then, which subject do you think are the easiest and why do you think that? So we’ve identified some subjects that you think are the hardest and easiest. Thinking about the whole range of subjects, what else do you think makes some subjects more difficult than others? [Can give examples if already mentioned some] a. Do you base your thoughts on anything else? For example, other peoples’ opinions or on the who the teacher is? i. Other people’s views? – friends/brothers and sisters/teachers? ii. Differences in Content (eg, is the content easy to understand)? iii. Teacher (e.g., friendly teacher or strict teacher)? Across the whole range of subjects, do you think that there is a big difference between the hardest subject and easiest subject, or are they quite close together in terms of difficulty and easiness? Do you think that there are any differences between what subjects you think are difficult or easy and what subjects your teachers think are difficult or easy? And how about your parents? Do they have any different thoughts? Psychological factors and cognitive ability What made you dislike mathematics Were you born by not liking mathematics? Please explain Does your attitude have anything to do with your performance in mathematics? Influence of Perceptions on mathematics: Do you think your thoughts about subject difficulty or easiness affect your attitude, motivation or grit for performance at best? Does anything [else] change how much these thoughts affect your view? E.g, Does anything else about math make you care less or more about how difficult that subject is? a. Do your thoughts about the usefulness of mathematics change how much subject difficulty or easiness affects your subject choices? By usefulness I mean how useful you think mathematics will be for your future education or career. i. [eg are you more likely to take a mathematics if you think it will help you get in to university? Or are you less likely to take an easy subject if you think it won’t be useful?] b. Does your enjoyment of a subject affect how difficult or easy you think it is? c. Often we find mth attract different levels of status. For example, some subjects get more respect or more recognition than others. Other subjects attract less respect. Do you think that the status of math is related to how difficult people think it is? Support System Has anything or anyone pushed you away from mathematics because they are thought to be difficult or easy? a. [E.g. Parents or teachers think something is too difficult for you?] b. Why do you think they have done that? Opposite to that, has anything or anyone motivated you towards ,mathematics, based on how difficult or easy it is thought to be? a. [e.g. Parents or teachers think something is easy so they make you take it?] b. Why do you think they have done that? c. Where do you tend to turn to most for assistance on mathematics, peers, parents, teachers, no one? d. Were they willing to assist you when you asked for help? e. Any one of these dislike mathematics, e.g. teachers, parent, friends, siblings that have affected you towards math? f. Were the teacher's teaching styles, voice, energy affected you positively or negatively towards mathematics? Grit factors Would you like to study math or math-related subject,such as accounting, economic, physics, in the future? Do you have the passion, perseverance, courage, self-actualization, self-conceptualization, the Gaul to deal with math? Please explain Are you fearless or bold to do any type of math? What have turn down your courage to deal with mathematics? How do you feel about studying mathematics? Passionate, enthusiastic, energetic, etc How many of us start something new, full of excitement and good intentions, and then give up — permanently — when we encounter the first real obstacle, the first long plateau in progress? Are you like this, in a math class? When mathematics seems difficult, when it knocked you down, what do you do to keep on going? When you keep searching for ways to change your situation for the better, you stand a chance of finding them. What do you do differently? How much passion and perseverance you have for your lifetime goals? Any other question That’s about everything I wanted to talk about. Can you think of anything we might have missed? Any important issues we haven’t discussed? Open-ended Survey questionnaire Date: _________________ Location: Belmopan Comprehensive School Current Position: I am Pedro Caal, a student at the University of Belize, in a Masters degree in Educational Leadership. The purpose of this research is to find out factors contributing to students’ performance in mathematics. If you agree to participate, please answer the questions below. All of your answers will strictly be confidential. Your response to these questions will be destroyed when the project is over. Thank you for participating, your response is vital for this research. Background of the Informant First name: _________________ Age: ____________________ Gender: ____________ Ethnicity: ___________________________ Form / class: _________ Address / Location: ____________________ Describe yourself: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What you will be studying in the future? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What do you do on weekends? Do you review, practice? Study? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What is your favorite subject? Why? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Do you believe males or females are good at math? Why? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Do you think village people or city students like math? Why? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What would make students fail mathematics? Please list ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Which subjects do you think is the most difficult and why do you think that? On the other end of the scale then, which subject do you think are the easiest and why do you think that? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Across the whole range of subjects, do you think that there is a big difference between the hardest subject and easiest subject, or are they quite close together in terms of difficulty and easiness? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Do you think that there are any differences between what subjects you think are difficult or easy and what subjects your teachers think are difficult or easy? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ And how about your parents? Do they have any different thoughts? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What made, you dislike mathematics? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ When did you notice you didn’t like mathematics? Please explain ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Would you like to study math or math-related subject,such as accounting, economic, physic, in the future? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Do you have the passion, interest, right attitude to deal with math? Please explain _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Are you fearless or bold to do any type of math? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What has turned down your courage to deal with mathematics? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ How do you feel about studying mathematics? Passionate, enthusiastic, energetic? Elaborate/explain: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ How many of us start something new, full of excitement and good intentions, and then give up — permanently — when we encounter the first real obstacle, the first long plateau in progress? Are you like this in a math class? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ When mathematics seems difficult, when it knocked you down, what do you do to keep on going? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ When you keep searching for ways to change your situation for the better, you stand a chance of finding them. What do you do differently? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ How much passion and perseverance you have for your lifetime goals? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Can you think of anything we Might have missed? Any important issues I didn’t ask related to math? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you for your response!  Parental Permission for Children Participation in Research Title: Factors affecting students’ performance in mathematics at a secondary school in Belmopan Introduction The purpose of this form is to provide you (as the parent of a prospective research study participant) information that may affect your decision as to whether or not to let your child participate in this research study. The person performing the research will describe the study to you and answer all your questions. Read the information below and ask any questions you might have before deciding whether or not to give your permission for your child to take part. If you decide to let your child be involved in this study, this form will be used to record your permission. Purpose of the Study If you agree, your child will be asked to participate in a research study about determining factors affecting students in mathematics. The purpose of this study is find out student-related factors that affect academic performance in mathematics at a secondary school in Belmopan and this is to get a better understanding of why students do not like mathematics. What is my child going to be asked to do? If you allow your child to participate in this study, they will be asked to answer relevant questions from a focus group of 11 other students to better understand their experience in mathematics and will be asked to draw a picture of themselves in a mathematics class. This study will take one hour from 2:45 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. on the 11th November, 2019 for one session and there will be 11 other participants of other people in this study. If you allow your child to participate in this study, they will be asked to answer relevant questions from an open-ended question survey with 48 other selected students. These questionnaire will be given to them, fill it anytime and return it when complete. Your child will or may be audio recorded to better obtain information from them when answering questions. All audio recording will be kept confidential and will solely used for this study. There will be no personal identifying information will be written with responses to the questions. The participants will remain anonymous). What are the risks involved in this study? There are no foreseeable risks to participating in this study. This study does not involve any significant risks and your child’s participation in this research will not benefit him/her personally, but it will create an better understanding of what is affecting students in mathematics which will benefit future students of Belmopan City. Does my child have to participate? No, your child’s participation in this study is voluntary. Your child may decline to participate or to withdraw from participation at any time. Withdrawal or refusing to participate will not affect their relationship with the researcher in anyway. You can agree to allow your child to be in the study now and change your mind later without any penalty. In addition to your permission, your child must agree to participate in the study. If you child does not want to participate they will not be included in the study and there will be no penalty. If your child initially agrees to be in the study they can change their mind later without any penalty. Will there be any compensation? Neither you nor your child will receive any type of payment participating in this study. How will your child’s privacy and confidentiality be protected if s/he participates in this research study? Any information learned and collected from this study in which your child might be identified will remain confidential and will be disclosed ONLY if the participant gave permission. All information collected in this study will be stored in a locked file cabinet in a locked room. Only the investigator and members of the research team will have access to these records. If information learned from this study is published, I will not be identified by name. By signing this form, however, I allow the research study investigator to make my records available to the University of Belize review board and regulatory agencies as required to do so by law. Consenting to participate in this research also indicates my agreement that all information collected from me individually may be used by current and future researchers in such a fashion that my personal identity will be protected. Such use will include sharing anonymous information with other researchers for checking the accuracy of study findings and for future approved research that has the potential for improving human knowledge. If it becomes necessary for the Institutional Review Board to review the study records, information that can be linked to your child will be protected to the extent permitted by law. Your child’s research records will not be released without your consent unless required by law or a court order. The data resulting from your child’s participation may be made available to other researchers in the future for research purposes not detailed within this consent form. In these cases, the data will contain no identifying information that could associate it with your child, or with your child’s participation in any study. If you choose to participate in this study, your child will be/may choose to be audio and/or video recorded. Any audio and/or video recordings will be stored securely and only the research team will have access to the recordings. Recordings will be kept for one year and then erased. Whom to contact with questions about the study? Prior, during or after your participation you can contact the researcher Mr.Pedro Caal at 665-0477 or send an email to pcal115623@gmail.com for any questions or if you feel that you have been harmed. Whom to contact with questions concerning your rights as a research participant? For questions about your rights or any dissatisfaction with any part of this study, you can contact, anonymously if you wish, the Institutional Review Board by phone at 822-3680 or email at plopez@ub.edu.bz . Signature You are making a decision about allowing your child to participate in this study. Your signature below indicates that you have read the information provided above and have decided to allow them to participate in the study. If you later decide that you wish to withdraw your permission for your child to participate in the study you may discontinue his or her participation at any time. You will be given a copy of this document. _________________________________ Printed Name of Child _________________________________ _________________ Signature of Parent(s) or Legal Guardian Date _________________________________ _________________ Signature of Investigator Date Factors affecting students’ performance at a secondary school in Belmopan Project Information Statement/Letter of Invitation to School Principals My name is Pedro Caal, and I am a Masters of Educational Leadership student at the University of Belize (UB). I am conducting a research on factors affecting students’ performance in mathematics under the supervision of Dr. Joyanne Babb and Dr. Priscilla Lopez. The University of Belize has given approval to approach schools for my research. I invite you to consider taking part in this research.This study will meet the requirements of the Research Ethics Committee of UB. Aims of the Research The research aims to: to find out student-related factors that affect academic performance in mathematics at a secondary school in Belmopan. Significance of the Research Project The research is significant in three ways: It will provide information about students’ past and present experience in mathematics. It will provide information about factors such as attitude, motivation, self-efficacy and grit that affects students to perform negatively in mathematics. It will provide schools and teachers with greater understanding about the phenomenon in mathematics. Benefits of the Research to Schools dissemination of results to the research school and the University of Belize. The results will inform administrators, teachers and parents on the outcome of the study. Research Plan and Method The data will be collected using a focus group interview of 12 purposefully selected participants out of a population of 60 students from 2nd to 4th form. 48 students will be given open-ended questionnaire to obtain their experiences in mathematics. Permission will be sought from the learners and their parents prior to their participation in the research. Only those who consent and whose parents consent will participate. The main researcher, Mr. Pedro Caal will administer the focus group interview for data collection which will be conducted on Monday,11th November, 2019 at 2:45 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. which will be only one session. All information collected will be treated in strictest confidence and neither the school nor individual learners will be identifiable in any reports that are written. Participants may withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. The role of the school is voluntary and the School Principal may decide to withdraw the school’s participation at any time without penalty. The nature of the data collected may be audio recording of students’ responses during the focus group interview. This will solely be used for data gathering for ease access to the response. If a learner requires support as a result of their participation in the survey steps can be taken to accommodate this. School Involvement Once I have received your consent to approach learners to participate in the study, I will arrange for informed consent to be obtained from participants’parents arrange a time with your school for data collection to take place obtain informed consent from participants Further information Attached for your information are copies of the Parent Information and Consent Form and also the Participant Information Statement and Consent Form. Invitation to Participate If you would like your school to participate in this research, please complete and return the attached form. Thank you for taking the time to read this information. ________________ ________________________ Mr. Pedro Caal Dr. Joyanne Babb Researcher’s name Associate Professor/Supervisor Factors affecting students’ performance in mathematics at a secondary school in Belmopan Principal Consent Form I give consent for you to approach learners from 2nd to 4th form to participate in the study entitled ‘Factors affecting students’ performance in mathematics at a secondary school in Belmopan’. I have read the Project Information Statement explaining the purpose of the research project and understand that: The role of the school is voluntary I may decide to withdraw the school’s participation at any time without penalty Purposefully selected learners from 2nd to 4th form will be invited to participate and that permission will be sought from them and also from their parents. Only learners who consent and whose parents consent will participate in the project All information obtained will be treated in strictest confidence. The learners’names will not be used and individual learners will not be identifiable in any written reports about the study. The school will not be identifiable in any written reports about the study. Participants may withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. A report of the findings will be made available to the school. I may seek further information on the project from Mr. Pedro Caal at phone number 665-0477. Participants to answer questions pertinent to the study. . ___________________________ Principal Signature __________________________ Date 3 Students’ perception on low math performance Students’ perception on academic Performance 76 Factors Affecting Student’s Performance in Mathematics RUNNING HEAD: Factors Affecting Student’s Low Academic Performance 72