Learners’ perceptions on factors that affect their overall performances in mathematics

Abstract

This paper presents part of the main study that was aimed at determining the effect of factors that affect learners’ poor performances in mathematics in rural areas of Limpopo Province in South Africa. This cross-sectional and quantitative study, which was aimed to exploring learners’ perceptions about factors that affect their performances in mathematics, used secondary data consisting of 113 randomly sampled participants, 38(33.63%) male and 75(66.37%) female learners, from Sekgosese cluster in the Limpopo Province. The questionnaire use for data collection was found to be reliable at Cronbach’s α =0.7002. Pearson’s chi-square test results, interpreted at 0.05 error rate, revealed that male and female learners had similar perceptions about socioeconomic status (p=0.502), parental involvement (p=0.142), learner’s age (p=0.295), leaner’s gender (p = 0.816), absenteeism (p=0.484), learner attitude (p=0.208), punctuality (p=0.693), substance abuse (p=0.485), command of English language (p=0.457), overcrowding (p=0.182) and school quintile (p=0.749), as factors that affect learners’ poor performances in mathematics. Significant association was observed between participants’ gender and parents’ education (p=0.026); wherein most female participants than male participants disagreed with the fact that parents’ education is a significant contributor towards learners’ poor performances in mathematics (n=38;55.07% versus n=16; 44.44%). The study results have implications for education authorities’ strategic efforts to adjust for factors that, according to the learners, are important when intervening in the learning and teaching of mathematics.

Keywords: Learner performance, learners’ perceptions, mathematics learning, school quintile, parents’ educational status