Difficulties in fractions : a link between primary and secondary schools

Abstract

A critical review, of various important foreign literature concerning the teaching, learning and nature of Mathematics, forms the first part of this study. The local investigation which follows is concerned with finding out the difficulties year 6 and form I pupils meet when working with fractions. For this purpose, an appropriate test-paper on fractions was set up and distributed to 85 primary and 170 secondary pupils attending local government schools during the scholastic year 1990-1991. The last part of this study attempts to relate the results of the analysis to the local Mathematics syllabuses vis-a-vis the National Minimum Curriculum, with special reference to the year 6 and form I syllabuses concerning the teaching of fractions. Some major ideas brought about were: 1. Primary pupils performed better than secondary students. 2. Rote learning is prevailing over meaningful learning of fractions 3. Fractions as a topic is being mostly covered at the primary level. 4. The difficulty level of each question relative to the rest was similar for both primary and secondary students