ABSTRACT
Mathematics is essential to enhance the learners' cognitive ability promoting their academic performance. This study pursued to see the effect in the academic achievement test score result of Pre-test and Post-test after being exposed to George Polya’s 4-step Method on Grade 9 students of Bugo National High School Year 2022-2023. A Quasi-experimental such as percentage, mean, and standard variation were used to determine and compare the results on the three major topics of the 4th Quarter Trigonometry, and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to determine the significant effect of the Experimental Group from the Conventional Group.
The results revealed that Based on the 4th Quarter Trigonometry, the Control Group had a 41% increase from the Pre-test and Post-test, while the Experimental Group had a 65% increase. Using the Analysis of Covariance, the p-value 0.036 is tested at a 0.05 level of significance, which resulted in rejecting the null hypothesis. George Polya’s 4-step Method had a significant effect on the 4th Quarter Trigonometry of the students of Grade 9 Bugo National High School, School Year 2022-2023. Mathematics teachers must explore more variations of techniques and ways to help learners improve their problem-solving ability as it enhances their capability of thinking and affect significantly in their academic performance. George Polya is one of the proven methods that can be used.
Keywords: George Poya 4-step Method, Achievement test, Academic Performance
INTRODUCTION
The K to 12 Curriculum has been the basic education curriculum of the Philippines from School Year 2011 to 2012. DepEd former Secretary Bro. Armin Luis Luistro stated that change in perspective makes education truly relevant to the learners by using materials and techniques applicable to the learners’ daily lives. In particular, critical thinking and problem-solving are now regarded as the twin goals of Mathematics teaching.
The Bugo National High School, School Year 2022-2023 learners are the first batch to attend face-to-face after blended learning, in which brewing issues of reading and numeracy were centered on the learners. In accordance with this, problem-solving in Mathematics is essential to enhance the learners' cognitive ability, hence promoting their academic performance. The school should provide various and strict strategies for hammering the learners' problem-solving skills.
Relevant to the Mathematics goal of the curriculum, Fortes (2019) claimed that the curriculum encourages solving problems to provide independence by empowering learners to engage in higher-order thinking; teachers should support an interactive environment by allowing the students to develop a habit of the mind that leads to meaningful experience. Roble (2021) stated that one of the reasons is that Filipino children can compete on international standards. However, the country’s recent results speak otherwise. TIMMS of 2019 Philippines ranked last in Mathematics among 58 countries, and PISA of 2018 Philippines ranked last among 79 participating countries.
George Polya (1957) published a book, “How To Solve It,” which quickly became his most prized publication. It sold over one million copies and has been translated into 17 languages. In this book, he identifies four basic principles of problem-solving. The steps are to understand the problem, devise a plan, carry out the plan, and re-examine the solution.
According to Roble (2021), in relation to the teaching and learning of mathematical concepts, students need to possess creative thinking and problem-solving skills. As such, Mathematics educators must also design activities that promote creativity among students. Problem-solving methods are believed to be an indispensable part of educating students in Mathematics.
According to the study of Yapatang et al. (2022), problem-solving requires students to solve problems in the classroom during a discussion, which proved to be an effective method in enhancing students’ achievement in Mathematics. The present study employed George Polya’s four-step problem-solving approach because students were given a new way of solving problems, which this current study theorized would help to develop students’ mathematical achievements.
With these views mentioned above, the study focused on Grade 9 students of Bugo National High School during the School Year 2022 – 2023. The classes of Grade 9 are composed of six heterogenous sections with an average age of 15 years of age. The data privacy shall be strictly implemented with the parents' consent and their voluntary agreement to experiment with the students and see if there is a significant effect on their achievement test.
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