Mathematics on News: How do Students Interpret Percentages in Daily Life Situations?

Abstract

Contexts with real-life situations can be more motivating for students, increase students' attitudes and interest, and strengthen the connection between mathematics and daily life. This study examined student interpretations of News texts consisting entirely of real-life situations and including percentage representations. In this qualitative case study, data were obtained from 30 8th grade students. Students were asked 6 News texts containing various percentage values and were expected to explain what they understood from these percentage values. The data obtained from the study were subjected to content analysis and interpreted by authors. The results indicate that students have difficulty in interpreting real-life situations involving percentage representation, and very few students make clear and understandable comments about real-life situations. It suggests that most students focused solely on the numerical growth of the percentage expression. Some students struggled with the News text, while others provided irrelevant, unclear, or meaningless responses. According to these findings, it is recommended that students' interpretations of real-world context in mathematics lessons be discussed more frequently in the classroom settings.

Keywords

• Contexts
• Mathematics
• Middle school students
• Percentages
• Real life situations

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