INVESTIGATION OF STUDENTS’ PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS ON ACITIVITY BASED LEARNING IN MATHEMATICS: A CASE STUDY IN SRI LANKA

Mathematics is the foundation of Science and Technology. The people cannot apart from mathematics in day to day life. Thus being “mathematically literate” will no longer be just an advantage but an absolute necessity. Despite the interest towards mathematics of school students is particularly low. It shows the poor performance of students in G.C.E. (O/L) examination. This study examines the students’ self-concepts and motivation as factors that may influence students’ performance and aspirations on Activity Based Learning (ABL) of mathematics in Sri Lanka. The results clearly indicate that ABL has developed students’ self-concepts, motivation, aspirations and performance.


Introduction
Mathematics is one of the most important subjects of our life. Mathematics is the foundation of science and technology and the functional role of mathematics to science and technology is multifaceted and multifarious that no area of science, technology and business enterprise escapes its application (Rao, Veerababu, & Khasim, 2012). Lack of mathematical knowledge and skills could not make a man to progress in life since it is required in our day to day life (Yadav, 2015). The basics of mathematics start from grade one in the school but its usage continues in our whole life. No matter to which field we are belong to, mathematics is everywhere. Mathematics is an international science. Mathematics is found and used in all forms of life and work, and it is completely justified to assert that mathematical questions are necessary for everyone. A human being is born with rudimentary mathematical knowledge and mathematical skills, is acquired during through formal schooling (Romano & Vincic, 2011). Mathematics and mathematical education are needed as preparation for the future profession to every individual in mastering In Sri Lankan school curriculum Mathematics is one of the core subjects taught from Grade one to Grade eleven. The aim of the mathematics curriculum under activity-based student-centered learning model was to create individuals who are able to think mathematically, and apply mathematical knowledge effectively in solving problems and decision making in their daily life (Mampitiya, 2014).
The primary purpose of teaching at any level of education is to bring fundamental change in learner. To facilitate the process of knowledge transmission, teachers should apply appropriate teaching methods. In traditional method of teaching widely applied teacher-centered methods. Research evidence from previous studies indicates that a student-centered learning environment seems to produce higher level learning outcomes more efficiently than a traditional teachercentered environment.
ABL is a general term for a variety of activities which make different demands on the abilities of both pupils and teachers and which have different purposes. ABL has constructivist purposes, and activities both access to information-rich possessions and cooperative interaction. The series of activities is considered as the central backbone of the course pedagogy which extant the students with prospects for "learning by doing" (Akhtar & Saeed, 2017). Activity method is that students learn by doing different activities, by trying new challenging ideas and comparing these with the existing ones. A child can be helped by providing safety, learn interesting experiences to enhance knowledge in supportive environment.
The teaching-learning process of Sri Lankan schools not in a satisfactory level and that affects poor performance of students in G.C.E. (O/L) examination. Mathematics teaching in most of the classrooms is conducted through traditional methods where learners are not motivated enough. Table 1 shows the percentages of Grades obtained for mathematics by students in G.C.E. (O/L) examination in recent ten years.        Even though activity-based student-centered method was introduced, it is not functioning at Sri Lankan Education System effectively. Thus, students' interest towards mathematics is very low. Past researches suggest that Teaching Style of teacher and Method of Instruction directly affect to the students' self-concepts, motivation, performance and aspirations. Thus, Activity Based lessons should be introduced to the Grade six students since they are starting to learn mathematics in formal way from Grade six. As method of teaching could affect students' performance and aspirations, the aim of this study is to examine the students' self-concepts and motivation as factors that may influence students' performance and aspirations on ABL of mathematics in Sri Lanka. Active learning strategies if employed in our mathematics lessons would bring about higher achievement of students in mathematics and ensure the realization of the objectives of mathematics in our schools (Festus, 2013).
Thus, this investigation facilitates the clarifying of these issues, investigating students' selfconcepts, motivation, performance and aspirations, and computing relations of students' selfconcepts and motivation with students' performance and aspirations. The objectives of this study as follows: (1) to investigate students' self-concepts, motivation and prior knowledge of Grade six mathematics; (2) to apply Activity Based Learning in mathematics to the experimental group while using traditional method of instruction on control group in teaching Grade six mathematics; (3) to explore students' performance and aspirations of two instructional processes in teaching Grade six mathematics; (4) to compute relations of students' self-concepts and motivation with students' performance and aspirations; and (5) to make valuable suggestions to enhance students' performance and aspirations in Grade six mathematics.

Methodology
The research used a mixed methods study. This approach is the best method for achieving a high response rate (Glasow, 2005). Questionnaires were designed collect the data which can be analyzed using advanced statistical techniques while semi-structured interviews were developed for teachers and students to know their deeper insights. Questionnaire was addressed to students' self-concepts, motivation, and aspirations in Mathematics.

Participants
Students at two schools in Gale Wela Education Zone in Sri Lanka participated in this study. One hundred and two students in Grade six and five mathematics teachers participated to the study.

Recruiting Procedure
A convenience sampling technique was used in this study. Necessary ethical approvals were obtained from relevant authorities and personal. A minimum disturbance maintained during the study for the regular work in the premises of data collection. All participants were provided information letter with details of the study and they were required to sign a consent form indicating they had understand the information letter.

Instrumentation
A pre-test was prepared for the purpose of appointing students into two homogeneous groups in experimental and control. A post-test was constructed to measure students' performance after the intervetion. Based on the findings of (Chandrasena, 2013), a closed ended, self-reported questionnaire of mathematics was constructed. Each of the scales is measured on a four point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree to 4=strongly agree). This scale comprises survey items related to students' self-concepts, motivation and aspirations on mathematics. The survey items related to motivation in the questionnaire comprises three different motivational orientations: mastery, intrinsic and ego in mathematics. Semi-structred interview schedules were developed for teachers and students to know their perception on ABL.

Procedure
Pre-test is given to all the students in selected two schools who are willing to participate for the study. They were assigned in two homogeneous groups in fifty students in experimental group and fifty two students in control group based on their pre-test marks. Questionnaire of self-concepts, motivation and aspirations administered prior to the intervention for both Experimental and Control groups. Activity Based Instructions used for Experimental group while used Traditional Method of Instructions to Control group. The lessons indicated in Table 3 were selected for teaching which needed 26 periods for each group.  Student-centered teaching methods such as group activities, mathematical games and presentations were used to Experimental Group. Control group was taught using Traditional Method which is more or less teacher centered-method. Lesson plans for both groups were written and used in the teaching-learning process. Post-test was conducted after the intervention to assess the performance of the students in both Experimental and Control groups. Same questionnaire was administered again to measure students' self-concepts, motivation and aspirations towards mathematics in both groups after the intervention. Semi-structured interviews were conducted for five mathematics teachers who taught for Grade six and ten randomly selected students from both Experimental and Control groups which is five from each.

Data Analysis
Survey data were initially entered in Microsoft Excel sheets form which datasets were prepared for use in SPSS. Quantitative data analyses (reliabilities, frequencies, descriptives, mean comparisions, regression analysis and correlation analysis) were performed using SPSS 17.0.
Decriptive analyses were carried out on the data for students' mathematics self-concepts, motivation, aspiration and performance, followed by reliability tests. To find the significant difference between the mean scores, "independent samples t-test" was applied at the significant level of 0.05. Qulitative data were analyzed using Thematic and Content analysis.  Table 4 shows the reliability estimates for questionnaire. The results of the reliability estimates for total sample, and accorss experimental and control groups show acceptable measures, with Alpha   Table 5 shows the reliability estimates for Motivation items in the Questionnaire. The results of the reliability estimates for total sample, and accorss experimental and control groups show acceptable measures, with Alpha coefficients ranging between .623 to .813 prior to the intervention and after the intervention (Aron & Aron, 2003).

Results and Discussion
An independent sample t-test revealed that there was no significant difference between the marks of pre-test in the experimental (M=48.86, SD=17.73) and control (M=48.15, SD=22.20) groups; t(100)=0.18, p=0.86. Inspection of the descriptive statistics in Table 7 shows that students' mean self-concepts and mean motivation is developed after the intervention in experimental group. The independent sample ttest conducted after the intervention (  As shown in the Table 8 students' mean marks and mean aspirations of students in experimental group are higher than students in control group. The independent sample t-test conducted after the intervention (    Table 10 shows that descriptive statistics for the mastery, intrinsic and ego motivation items. Mean motivations of mastery, intrinsic and ego in experimental group are higher than the control group.  It was also demonstrated significant correlations between Mastery, Intrinsic and Ego Motivations. Highest significant correlation (0.524) was associated with Intrinc and Mastery Motivations. Table 12 shows the regression analysis of self-concepts and motivation with performance and aspirations. All the regression values between self-concepts, mastery motivation, intrinsic motivation and ego motivation with performance and aspirations were significant (p<0.05).  Figure 3 shows that 11.5% of self-concepts and 14.1% of motivation affect performance while 35.2% of self-concepts and 34.1% of motivation affect to aspirations. Ego motivation is highly affects (11.2%) to performance and Mastery motivation is highly affects (29.7%) to aspirations of Grade six students.

Conclusion and Suggestions
The study revealed that Activity Based Learning (ABL) made all the students as active learners and at the same time it improves peer learning environment and team spirit among students. Also it showed that self-concepts and motivation are directly affected to students' performance and aspirations. Performance and aspirations of students can be developed through ABL. Qualitative findings revealed that less support from peer students, inadequate time period and non-willingness by the teachers on ABL were some identified barriers in promoting ABL in classroom practices. Thus it is suggested to facilitate mathematics learning through suitable activities to improve students' meaningful learning.