EFFECTIVENESS OF UNIT CIRCLE AND FUNCTION METHODS TO FACILITATE STUDENTS CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING ON TRIGONOMETRY

Abstract

Secondary school students’ conceptual understanding in mathematics is very low. This is particularly true in trigonometry topic. One of the possible factors leading to this is the teaching and learning approaches. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the unit circle and functional approaches in a blended manner of teaching trigonometry concepts. The study was undertaken to determine influence of unit circle and functional methods on students’ conceptual understanding in trigonometry. To answer the research questions quasi-experimental one group posttest design was employed. The source of data was grade 12 students who are learning in the academic year of 2014 E.C. The data was obtained by written test questionnaires. To collect the data, students were placed to low achievers, moderate achievers and high achievers based on their grade 11 first semester result. A simple random sampling was used to select 110 grade 12 students for pre-test and a nonrandom sampling was used to select 50 participating students based on their pre-test score. All groups took trigonometric assessment test and trigonometry perception questionnaire before and after implementing the intended approaches. At the end of the lesson, a similar post-test to that of pre-test was given for all selected group of students. The posttest result measure the comparative effects of teaching methods on student conceptual understanding. A paired t-test analysis was carried out on the results using a social science statistical package, SPSS. The results of data analysis indicated that unit circle and functional method are effective in teaching trigonometry, with positive influences to students’ conceptual learning of trigonometry. Quantitative analyses of student results point to a relative improvement in conceptual understanding. The findings of the study reveal that students have positive perception towards the method. The students have lack of knowledge and misunderstanding to the real life application of trigonometry