ENHANCING MATHEMATICAL ACHIEVEMENT AND PROBLEM SOLVING ABILITIES OF GRADE 10 STUDENTS BY POLYA’S FOUR STEPS AND SCHOENFELD’S BEHAVIOR CATEGORIES

Abstract

The purposes of this classroom action research were to enhance students' mathematical achievement and to enhance students' problem solving abilities by using Polya’s Four Steps and Schoenfeld’s Behavior Categories. The participants were 32 grade 10 students in the first semester of academic year 2017 at a secondary school in Bangkok, Thailand. The topic used in this study was real number system. Apart from Polya’s Four Steps and Schoenfeld’s Behavior Categories, the researcher also applied group work activity in teaching problem solving. Instruments in this study were 8 lesson plans, mathematics achievement test, and problem solving test. Teaching and learning lasted 13 periods with 50 minutes in each period. There were three cycles of action plan. Each cycle was composed of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. Data were collected from those instruments, including students' homework, worksheets, and teacher’s reflection. Results showed that students’ achievement scores and problem solving scores were high to the levels required by the researcher. From reflections, researcher adjusted teaching by frequently reminding students of resources, general strategies, content-specific strategies, to think about their thinking, control and checking problem solutions.