MALAYAN COLLEGES MINDANAO I HATE MATHEMATICS: A QUALITATIVE STUDY ON STUDENTS’ DISLIKE

OF MATHEMATICS Qualitative Research Presented to the Faculty of the Senior High School Department
Malayan Colleges Mindanao-SHS By: Allyza Zyrene P. Magallano Almarc C. Dacono Mark Lester M.
Matunhay Nathaniel T. Libor Xavier Robert B. Paguntalan February 2019

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Mathematics deals with numbers and operations. It is a major subject that
has a major contribution to our society. Mathematics helps us with our everyday situation, it helps us
locate time, it helps us with our money, construction, technology, in fact, mathematics is said to be “life.”
Mathematics helps the study in almost everything, it also influenced or used by other subjects and field
especially science as they are closely related. Through mathematics, calculations are exact. Math is also
often called as a shortcut for mathematics. Although this subject is a great asset to our community, many
students dislike the study of this subject. Students describe mathematics as equation, numbers,
problems, depression, stress and many more. Why do students dislike the study of mathematics? This is
a question that has almost infinite answers. Prasath (2018) states that the main reason why students
dislike mathematics because is when teachers are having a difficult time comprehending the lesson, they
decrease the curiosity of the students. Mathematics is often disliked by most students because of bad
pedagogy. This can affect students to hate this subject. It will always be in their mindset that
mathematics is hard and through bad pedagogy, it gets worse. He also stated that there is a cycle of why
students hate math. First, they tried, then they fail, then they feel inadequate, then they give up, then
end up hating math and avoid engaging future trials. Students must learn from their mistakes, but
numerous students hate to fail that’s why when they fail they

bargain and rant. Though bad pedagogy is a factor of students dislikes of mathematics, still students have
something to do about it, they must encourage themselves to keep themselves close to the subject.
Another reason why students dislike the study of mathematics is that it is complicated. According to
Harario, cited by Andamon (2015), mathematics is considered to be the second hardest subject both in
elementary and high school. Numerous students have a hard time solving mathematical equations and
end up hating the subject. Some also hate it because it has a long process yet have a simple answer.
Students also complain because of its long and many formulas to memorize, and when the test came,
they end up using the wrong formula to a specific equation. Some students hate this subject because it
does not interest them. To like a particular subject, it must not bore the students, or it must be taught in
a good way of teaching. Learning mathematics starts by memorizing formula and tables. Still,
memorizing is so much trouble, that’s why many students dislike mathematics. Students gets a hard time
on memorizing the