An assessment of college students’ understanding in mathematical problem solving.

The aim of this study was to develop a comprehensive description of college freshman’s understanding of basic mathematical concepts and heuristic actions in application to problem solving. The methodology used was both qualitative and quantitative in nature. This study accumulates evidence regarding the nature of students’ understanding of basic mathematical concepts and some critical factors to be taken into account in facilitating their development How well do the national examination grades reflect the mathematical knowledge of students? The grades obtained in the national examination of Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) for mathematics do not correlate with their mathematical knowledge in problem solving. The findings indicate that these students have an instrumental understanding rather than a relational understanding as the data shows that they were not able to apply mathematical knowledge to new contextual situations. This study also indicates that there was no difference in the performance of the “A Math Students” and “Non A Math Students” in the problem solving test. The result of this study shows that majority of college freshmen could not do problem solving question. They have learnt how to do numerical computation at the expense of learning how to think and solve problems.