Students' personal factors affecting achievement in mathematics

Abstract

This study was carried out in Kaski district from February to April 2015 with the aim to check the significant difference between the mean achievement of mathematics accordingly personal factors of the students like gender, time hour on watching TV and time hour on studying mathematics at home. The research was based in survey design within quantitative approach. One hundred ninety students of eight sampled schools of Kaski district was selected who was studying at grade eight in the academic session 2015. Mathematics Achievement Test and Student Questionnaire Form were administered to collect achievement and the information about their personal factors. Descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation was used to study mean achievement and deviation of achievement. The one-way ANOVA and independent sample test t-test was used to examine the significance among and between the different variables of personal factors. The study found that the mean achievement of the students of Kaski district in mathematics was 45.55with standard deviation 15.51 and is higher than the mean achievement of the national assessment, 2015. The mean achievement of the students from private and urban schools was better than the achievement of the students from public and rural schools. The differences among and between the mean achievement accordingly time hour on studying mathematics was statistically significant. But the differences between the achievements of students by gender and time hour on watching TV were statistically not significant. It was found that the personal factors of the students play role on achievement in mathematics.