Investigation Of Competence In Numeracy Skills Amongst Form I Entrants In Tanzania: A case Of Schools In Eastern Inspectorate Zone
The study has employed a descriptive research design and elements of both qualitative and quantitative methods to accomplish the fundamental goal of investigating the competence of Form I entrants in numeric skills. The focus was on identifying students’ errors on primary school mathematics, the associated misconceptions and causes. Consequently, a remedial approach was designed for intervention. The test, questionnaire and a focus-group discussion guide were employed for data collection. While errors were explored by a scrutiny of students’ work sheets, discussion guide was utilized to ascertain the conjectures of underlying misconceptions and causes. A questionnaire was used to capture views of teachers on the ability of Form I entrants in mathematics, and interventions taken. The major findings were that: most students had inadequate numeracy knowledge and skills; they committed both conceptual and procedural errors; schools had no system of identifying students’ mathematical learning difficulties for intervention; and there was no an effective remedial approach for correcting mathematical misconceptions amongst Form I entrants. The study recommends: (i) A system of testing Form I entrants on competencies in numeracy knowledge and computation skills, that are requisite for understanding secondary school mathematics. (ii) Introduction of a remedial programme to all Form I entrants by using a remedial approach developed in this study. (iii) Use of teaching strategies which allow diagnosis of learning misconceptions and remedial activities during the lesson. (iv) Immediate scoring of assignments, identification of errors and provision of feedback through extensive corrections. (v) A review of policies on teacher training and textbooks to address the issue of teaching/learning of mathematics at primary and secondary school levels.
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