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There are many difficulties that can be identified when students solve mathematic problems especially in solving probability word problems. This study was conducted to identify the major obstacles faced by matriculation college students while solving the probability of an event word problems. Seven college students were the sample for this case study. Clinical interviews are used as a data collection. This data collection technique was selected based on the researcher’s observation on the participants as they answered the probability word problem task. The task was given during the interview session. Semi structured interviews are used to obtain in depth information. Think-aloud analysis involves observations leading to individual behaviours in the oral or nonverbal form of participants and the researcher’s field notes. Participants were found to have difficulty interpreting probabilities. There are three categories of difficulties that have been identified, namely not knowing the meaning of the word, not knowing the nature of the probability and not being able to identify the goal of the probability word problem.

This aim of this study is to identify the effectiveness of the use of Geometer’s Sketchpad (GSP) in the teaching of circle among Form Two students. The quasi-experimental study was to investigate the following two aspects, namely the effective use of software GSP and a survey instrument was used to elicit students’ perception on the use of GSP. About 82 students from two classes selected at random were divided into a treatment group and control group. The results showed that students exposed to the use of GSP obtained significantly better mean test scores compared to the control group. The results of this study indicate that using GSP in teaching and learning of the circle properties have a positive impact on students. Analysis of the questionnaire responses indicated a positive overall perception of using Geometer's Sketchpad in learning about the circle.

Conceptual understanding of properties of operations is an important element of algebraic thinking in primary school. Mathematical processes should be focused rather than mathematical products starting from primary school. The purpose of this study was to examine the Year Five pupils' understanding of relationship between addition and subtraction. Researchers utilized quantitative approach to investigate Year Five pupils' conceptual understanding of addition and subtraction. Pencil and paper based assessment consisting of three items was employed to collect the data. The three items comprised direction of change and relationship between addition and subtraction items. The three items also consist of reasoning sections. This article reports the analysis of the responses of 720 Year Five pupils from a district of Malacca. The findings showed the majority of the sample were unable to perform well for the items testing relationship between addition and subtraction. They could not work with addition and subtraction properties. The majority of them were also unable to provide conceptual reasoning for their answer. Only about half of the sample were aware about the inverse relationship of addition and subtraction.

Pattern generalisation is one of the most important elements in developing functional thinking in elementary school which leads to build foundation to work with algebra in later years of education. Therefore, this study took an initiative to study the performance of year five pupils in pattern generalisation and its correlation with mathematics achievement. The sample of the study comprised 720 fifth grade pupils from a district of Malacca. Data were collected using four adapted tasks. Paper and pencil-based assessment conducted during the class hours. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics with help of SPSS software. The findings showed samples’ ability to work with numerical patterns is better than their ability to work with figural patterns. However, the performance in far generalisation is extremely poor compared to near generalisation. While, a significant association found between performance of numerical and figural patterning tasks. Furthermore, there is no correlation between ability to work with patterns and mathematics achievement. With the increased interest in integrating functional thinking into elementary school teaching and learning, this work may be of interest to educators to identify how working with patterns could promote functional thinking and lead to a strong foundation for formal algebra learning in later years of education.

This study aims to identify primary school pupils' informal understanding and solving problems strategies related to proportional. This qualitative study involved Year Five pupils who were selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected using clinical interview technique can show the pupils' strategies and in-depth justification for each activity is shown. This article presents the analysis of the pupils' responses related to two proportional tasks. Data shows that students used various informal strategies to solve proportional problems. The findings also showed that students who have not learn ratio and proportion topic formally, could show proportional reasoning elements, such as unitizing, partitioning, and changes and quantities. The findings of this study may provide information to mathematics teachers that every student has different informal strategy to solve proportional problems based on their experiences and prior knowledge. Thus teachers need to diversify activities to encourage students' proportional thinking.

The problems of the decreasing enrolment of science students at secondary school level as well as the lagging science and mathematics achievement and literacy of Malaysian secondary students in international assessment studies point to a serious challenge for the government to improve Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. One of the key steps that can be taken is to identify the current assessments in STEM related subjects at the secondary school level because according to OECD (2005), assessment is an integral component of the education process. Thus, this study (which is part of a larger research project) aimed to examine secondary students' perceptions of assessments in STEM related subjects. The researchers employed a cross-sectional survey research design and the sample comprised of 1215 Form Four students from three categories of secondary schools in Peninsular Malaysia. A five-point Likert scale questionnaire containing 10 items was used to elicit Form Four students' perceptions of assessments such as examinations or assignments in STEM related subjects. The questionnaire was developed based on the STEM Education Quality Framework (2011). Analysis of 1005 complete questionnaires from the sample indicated that the students showed positive overall perceptions of assessments in STEM related subjects. The results also indicated that there was a statistically significant difference in overall perceptions of assessments in STEM related subjects in terms of school category but there was no statistically significant difference in overall perceptions of assessments in STEM related subjects in terms gender.