Published on July 2018 | Education Research, Policy Research, Social Science

EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS OF STUDENT'S PERFORMANCE IN ALGEBRA AND PLANE TRIGONOMETRY: A PROPOSED ENTRANCE EXAM POLICY

A three-year data, specifically from school year 2008–2009 to 2010–2011, onstudents’ performance in mathematics subjects (College Algebra and Plane Trigonometry) wereanalyzed to determine the following: (1) enrolment in these two disciplines; (2) thenumber ofpassers in each subject; (3) the number of dropouts, which include unofficial withdrawal andofficial withdrawal; (4) report of average final rating in College Algebra and Trigonometry, and(5) higher percentage of passers, drop outs or failed in College Algebra and Trigonometrysubject. Mean, percentage, graphical and tabular methods were used to present, analyze andinterpret the available secondary data. Results of the study revealed anupward trend ofenrollment in Trigonometry and gradual downward trend of College Algebrawhich signifies re-takers enrolled every year. Furthermore, there were few female students who performed bettercompared to their male counterpart. In addition, males had higher percentage of drop outs inCollege Algebra and Plane Trigonometry over the period of years covered. Findings of the studyalso showed that there were some students who were not totally prepared to take the saidsubjects. Further, new input data for tertiary education indicate females performing goodcompared to their male counterparts have fair performance in both disciplines. The concernedoffices are hereby requested to issue a formal memorandum for compliance and implementationof an Entrance Examination Policy and a separate course (Math 0)for incoming freshmenstudents who wanted to enroll Computer Science.