5.

1 Introduction

In this chapter, further discussion about the analysing of data with the summary of
previous study which can be concluded the topic of this research which are the
necessity of problem-solving skills to the primary student in Mathematics.
Suggestions will also been given for each that interested in this study.

5.2 Conclusion and Discussion

In the study of necessity of problem-solving skills in mathematics for primary

students through the differences of views between the in-service and pre-service
teachers, a survey had been carried out with 45 questions to the target of the in-
service and pre-service teachers. The 45 questions set up with each 15 questions
from three aspects which are the belief of the in-and pre-service teachers towards
problem-solving skills, the benefits of it, and, the difficulties of applying it to primary
students. There are 101 in-service teachers and 135 pre-service teachers included in
this survey which had been limited to in-service teacher in the capital city of Kedah,
Alor Setar, and pre-service teachers studying at the Institute of Teacher Education
(IPG) intake 2018 and 2019.

For the first aspect, belief of the in-and pre-service teachers towards problem-
solving skills is importance because the belief of the teacher will affect the learning
progress of the students (Palraj et al., 2017). In this aspect, in-service teachers had
gained a mean score of 3.403. This have revealed that the in-service teachers are
belief to the problem-solving skills is positive. This results had gain a similar result to
an experimental research that had carried out by Palraj and his team in 2017. The
research questions of this are 1. what are the beliefs of teachers on problem solving
skills? 2. To what extent are teachers in schools implementing problem solving in
teaching? The final results gained which the belief of teachers in problem-solving
skills is positive too.
In previous study, a survey had been carried out in year 2018 to investigate
the beliefs in the nature teaching and learning among the secondary mathematics
teachers in Malaysia by Leong and his team had stated both male and female math
teachers in Malaysia held constructivist beliefs more strongly than directed the
traditional teaching method. (Leung et al, 2018). Which this can explain for the items
number 2 I don’t like to solve more problems of the same type that had gained the
mean of 2.72. As had stated by Leung et al., (2018), the constructivist teachers
would concentrate more on helping pupils in building their mathematical knowledge
than simply delivering it make it clear that the traditional way of keep repeating same
type problems did not match with their belief in constructivist.
According to Nikmah (2018), while applying problem–based learning method
in the classroom shown improvement between experimental group compare with the
control groups however there still some mistakes that often make by students most
because of the lack of understanding the concepts to a certain topic. From the
questionnaire given for this aspect, the item number 9 understanding concepts is
important for learning and the item number 10, applying concepts to other situations
is important for learning had gain the mean of 3.24 and 3.57 for in-service teachers.
The positive belief of in-service teachers to learning concept of mathematics
matched with the results to an experimental research that had carried out by Nikmah
in 2018 that shown the importance of learning concepts when learning mathematics.
For the past research to the next aspect, the views on the benefits of problem-
solving skills of the in-service and pre-service teachers stated that the efficiency of
problem-based learning approaches helps in students’ performance in academic.
(Ajai, et al., 2013; Mariati, et al., 2017; Gezim & Nazmi, 2020). As this had come
across with the view of the in-service teachers in the benefits of problem-solving
skills. This is shown by data analysis, in this aspect the in-service teachers gained a
mean score of 3.47.
From the questionnaire given, for the item number 1 ‘I think by connecting
real-life problems with mathematics, students can learn faster’ gained a mean score
of 3.75, And mean score of 4.74 gained by both items number 2 and 3, ‘I think
students are easier to learn mathematical concepts by being given a chance for
them to explore themselves.’ ‘I think students can be motivated by learning
mathematics which can be related to their daily lives.’ As the problem-based learning
requires students to do realistic investigations in order to find actual solutions to real
problems. Learning begins after they have been exposed to the daily problem
structure that is existing around them. Thus student who is exposed to problem-
based learning approach to learning is more likely to have a deep understanding of
the subject. (Ajai, et al., 2013; Mariati et al., 2017).
The third aspect for this research, the difficulties of applying problem-solving
skills to primary students. Teachers sometimes experience difficulty when applied
the problem-based learning due to the shortage of time available for preparation to
maximise the activities in all stages. Time management skills of the teachers were
necessary for the problem-based learning implementation. (Abaidullah et al., 2015;
Nurlaily et al., 2019). However, both researches studied on Indonesia and Pakistan.
The differences of culture and background make the different opinion between
teachers. The study of this research had stated these difficulties were not an
obstacle to apply problem-solving skills with an overall mean score of 3.28 in this
aspect.
From this aspect, item number 1 ‘In my opinion, this method is not suitable
when the period is short for teaching.’ gained a mean score of 1.72, item number 2
‘In my opinion, the teacher spends more time preparing a lesson.’ Gained a mean
score of 1.76 and item number 3 ‘In my opinion, the teacher needs enough space,
resources, and a feasible environment in the class.’ Gained a mean score of 1.65
had stated the in-service teachers in Malaysia did not see there are any problems
when applying problem solving skills in the classroom even the time period is short
although according to Nurlaily et al. (2019), time needed for a teacher to prepared
the activities of problem-solving in the classroom is longer and harder.
Moreover, the necessities for teaching aids of problem-solving skills are high,
however it is hard to get for rural schools. Additionally, the teachers in Pakistan felt
that the problem-solving approach did not properly fit with a curriculum that focused
too much emphasis on textbooks and an examination that was emphasised with
formal exams that promoted memory skills. (Abaidullah et al., 2015). However, in the
item number 9 ‘I think a lack of materials on problem-solving in mathematics are one
of the difficulties’ and item number 10 ‘In my opinion, students are insufficient
laboratory practice in the specific domain of mathematics subject’ had both gained a
low mean 1.69 and 1.75 respectively shown it is not a problem for the in-service
teachers that help in this research. This can be proven by the obvious evidences of
the cancellation of the examination for the year one till three primary students since
2019 and Primary School Achievement Test (UPSR) since 2021. The in-service
teachers in Malaysia did not need to rush for complete the syllabus therefore various
activities can be carry out in the classroom.
In this study, there are there hypothesises that had been made which to
determine three research questions. For the first hypothesises there are no
significant differences in the overall mean scores in between the belief toward
problem-solving skills, the views on the benefits of problem-solving skills, and the
difficulties of applying them to primary students among the in-service teachers used
to determine the research questions of are there any significant differences overall
mean score between the belief towards problem-solving skills, the benefits of it, and,
the difficulties of applying it to primary students among the views of in-service
teachers. While the second hypothesis there are no significant differences in the
overall mean scores in between the belief toward problem-solving skills, the views on
the benefits of problem-solving skills, and the difficulties of applying them to primary
students among the pre-service teachers used to determine the research questions
of are there any significant differences overall mean score between the belief
towards problem-solving skills, the benefits of it, and, the difficulties of applying it to
primary students among the views of pre-service teachers.
For the inferential analysis, the One-way ANOVA test is chosen for testing
whether these two hypothesizes needed to be rejected or not. Which both of these
hypothesises gain the results of [ F (2, 300) = 7.345, P = 0.001 < 0.5, η2 = 0.047] for
the in-service teachers and [ F (2, 399) = 543.268, P = 0.001 < 0.5, η2 = 0.731] for
the pre-service teachers. To test the differences overall mean score between the
three aspects among the view of both sample groups, the post hoc comparisons in
this study, the Tukey HSD test is chosen.
As for the results of in-service teachers through the Tukey HSD test, there are
significant differences between the aspects of in-service teachers’ belief toward
problem-solving skills and their views on the benefits of problem-solving skills. With
the reading of η2 = 0.047 and thus the effect side is only 4.7%. According to Cohen
(1988), the effect size can be determined as small ( η2 = 0.01), medium (η2 = 0.06),
and large (η2 = 0.14) effect, which mean the effect size is small. For the mean score
of the views 3.4 and the mean of benefit is 3.47 means that the differences between
these two is small and both shown a positive sign towards. Besides that, there is
another significance difference between the views of in-service teachers towards
problem-solving skills to primary students and the difficulty applying it. However, with
the mean of 3.47 and 3.28 means scores respectively, the difference between these
two aspects is small too and both are positively towards.
Meanwhile, for the pre-service teachers, the study of the η2 = 0.731 stated
that there are 73.1% of the in-service teachers been effected to the differences
between the aspects. Based on Cohen (1988), the effect size of 0.731 considered as
high. Through the Tukey HSD, the significance differences appeared within all of the
aspects which are between the aspects of pre-service teacher's belief in problem-
solving skills and their views on benefits to it. Even though, through the study of both
mean score of these two aspects with 3.37 and 3.44 respectively shown the positive
sign towards it.
However, a huge difference in mean score happened between the
comparisons of the views of in-service teachers on the benefits of problem-solving
skills and the difficulty of applying it and the difficulty of applying it to the belief of pre-
service teachers toward it. This happened because a lower mean score appeared for
the aspect of the difficulty to apply problem-solving to the primary students. Most of
the pre-service teachers did not have the confidence to apply it in the classroom.
According to Fernando et al., (2015) most of the pre-service teachers are facing
problems with the classroom management. The students did not see the pre-service
teachers as teachers hence they did not pay enough respects to them (Fernando et
al., 2015). Hence with the short period of experience for practicum of the pre-service
teachers, it can say that they did not confidence with the teaching methods that
involved a lot of interactions and movement which cause the lower mean for this
aspect.
Whereas for the third hypothesis, there are no significant differences in the
overall mean scores in between in-service and pre-service teachers’ views about the
necessity of problem-solving skills in mathematics for primary students that made
from the research question is there any significant differences in the overall mean
scores in between in-service and pre-service teachers’ views about the necessity of
problem-solving skills in mathematics for primary students. As in previous chapter,
independent sample t-test had carried out to test for the hypothesis and the
conditions; [t (135.489) = 9.001, p = 0.001 < 0.05] prove there are significant
differences in the overall mean scores in between in-service teachers’ [M = 3.386,
SD = 0.207] and pre-service teachers’ [M = 3.185, SD = 0.101] views about the
necessity of problem-solving skills in mathematics for primary students.
The first difference can be shown in the first aspect questionnaire of the item
number 2 ‘I don’t like to solve more problems of the same type.’ Which there are a
huge different among the in-service and pre-service teachers. According (Palraj et
al., 2017), some in-service teachers are still preferred a traditional teacher-centre
method over allowing their students to learning knowledge from the observations of
their real-life. Although there was agreement on the necessity of applying concepts
and solving problems however, the average degree of agreement regarding the
significance of memorization is concerning. Which this had cause the difference of a
higher mean (2.72) of in-service teachers compare with the mean of in-service
teachers (1.90) that had trained for cognitive education for years.
Some other differences also had shown between the in-service and pre-
service teachers in the aspect of their views on the benefits of problem-solving skills.
For the item number 1, ‘I think by connecting real-life problems with mathematics,
students can learn faster’, gained a higher mean score (3.75) compare with pre-
service teachers. (3.40) As had mentioned before, Base on Ajai et al., (2013)
problem-based learning approach is more likely to have a deep understanding of the
subject by the students. While the in-service teachers gained a lot more experiences
compare with the pre-service teachers hence they had a further perceptions of the
benefits of the problems-solving skills compare with the pre-service teachers.
Therefore, according to Karakoyun (2019), the teacher-training programs should
prepare well for the pre-service teachers about their profession of their future
career.
There is another huge difference between the in-service teachers and pre-
service teachers from the second aspect. For the items ‘I think problem-solving skills
are supportive for learners of all abilities in the class’ the in-service teacher gained a
lower mean of 3.19 compared with the mean of 3.43 of the pre-service teachers. As
for this, the pre-service teachers that lack of experience in actual teaching will
always try to apply theories in it. Therefore, their views are always from a student
side. (Harding et al., 2015). This cause the extreme high expectations of them
towards the benefits of problems-solving skills to apply in classroom contain
students with all kind of abilities compare with the in-service teachers that serving in
school for years.
And lastly, the biggest differences between the in-service and pre-service
teachers is the overall mean score of the third aspect which in-service teachers
gained a mean of 3.28 and pre-service teachers gained a mean of 2.75. This
happened can be said as the in-service teachers with full experiences in teaching
face various type of problems in their education career and hence these minor
elements did not count as obstacles to them. Base on Harding et al. (2015), the pre-
service teachers with lacking of management skills faced a hard time in control
classroom and might waste plenty of time. Therefore, instead of teaching, they
should put more efforts in learning the classroom managements.
Through the discussion above, hence various conclusions had made as
below:
i. The three aspects of the in-service teachers shown a positive sign of the
in-service teachers towards the necessity of problem-solving skills for the
primary students in Mathematics.
ii. The belief of the pre-service teachers towards problem solving skills and
their views to it shown a positive sign.
iii. There are significance differences among the three aspects of the pre-
service teachers with a lower mean score in the aspect of difficulty of
applying problem-solving skills for the primary students in Mathematics.
iv. Pre-service teachers are lack of experiences in teaching.
v. Pre-service teachers are in-confidence in classroom managements.
vi. There are differences in the overall mean scores in between in-service
and pre-service teachers’ views about the necessity of problem-solving
skills in mathematics for primary students.
vii. The significance differences between in-service and pre-service teachers
appeared due to the range of teaching years and experiences.
viii. The in-service teachers shown a positive sign of applying problem-solving
skills in the classroom while the pre-service students shown a negative
sign.
ix. The ministry of education Malaysia should put more effort in publishing
problem-solving skills at Institute of Teacher Education (IPG) as
preparation for the pre-service teachers to their future career.
x. The ministry of education Malaysia should supply more aids and resource
for the application of problem-solving skills in the classroom since it had
proven it is useful skill for the students.
xi. Future research more could be done about the way of improve classroom
managements for teachers with lack of experiences since it is a serious
issue.
5.3 Implication
5.4 Recommendation.
To discover how much teachers' training programmes affect the way problem solving
is used in schools, more research could be done. Furthermore, the mindset and
beliefs of teachers who have completed preservice teacher training is necessary to
establish whether these programmes promoted the development of Problem-solving
techniques and constructivist teaching techniques.