Students’ Van Hiele Level of Geometric Thought and Its Relationship to Their Achievement in Mathematics

Abstract

This is a research study has been carried out to find out van Hiele level of geometric thinking of grade X students and its relationship to their achievement in mathematics and teachers’ perspectives on van Hiele level of geometric thinking. Using mixed method research design focusing on survey approach, the researcher used stratified random sampling method to select 4 secondary school and 203 students were sample of the study of Tanahun district. Four mathematics teachers of respective schools’ were interviewed in detail about their view on van Hiele level of geometric thinking with respect to subject difficulty, level access, attitude toward teacher training and geometry teaching. Van Hiele geometric test (VHGT) was used as a main tool for the data collection and school examination in mathematics (SEM) was second tool. The data obtained from van Hiele Geometric Test of each student and score of students were obtained from schools’ record and interview has been analyzed descriptively. The participated students were asked to respond on 20 multiple choice questions, each question contents 5 multiple answers to test VHGT. Analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from the respondents, it has been found that, the participations were at low van Hiele geometric thinking levels, at level 3 which is quite difficult than level 1 and 2 and absence at level 4 shows that the students had difficulty in dealing concerning class inclusion and the relationship between the properties of various simple geometric shapes and between different shapes. The teachers perspective on VHGT found that method and teaching procedure is easy in level ‘0’, ‘1’,and ‘2’ than ‘3’ and ‘4’. Students’ VHGT scores were found to be significantly correlated with their SEM scores. This means that who did well in VHGT did just as well in the SEM