5.. All are welcomed to add comments to the writings..
5. WE FOCUS ON CHAPTER 1 ONLY until 4 May 2020). After that we go to Chp 2.
GOOD LUCK!!

1.0 Introduction

2.0 Background of the Study

3.0 Problem Statement

4.0 Research Objectives

5.0 Research Questions

6.0 Significance of Research

7.0 Limitations and Delimitations

8.0 Operational Definitions

9.0 Conclusion

 

The significance of research is for the study of the causes and the contributing factors in existing that lead to the gap of education between urban and rural areas. This part of the research contains the beneficiaries among the administration, the teacher and the student in rural area. It could help them to find a solution to bridge the gap of education between urban and rural area.

 

2.Limitations and Delimitations 

This research study about the problem that lead towards the gap of education among student who live in urban and rural area. This study could give a big impact towards a groups who stay in rural area. This because, there are some problems in that area that contribute towards this problem. The limitation of the population who involves in this research are the people who ever had an experience studied in the situation. Mostly, the students from Sabah and Sarawak were the majority had the experience. The sampling method of this study by collecting data from the student in UiTM Puncak Alam that have the experienced study in rural area. And it will cause the time limitation because it will take a long time to get the respondents because there are less number of student who ever study in the situation which is the rural area.  

     The outcome of the study will be helpful to pupils, teachers, policy makers and parent. It will improve pupils’ performance in mathematics and its ripple effect will be felt in other subjects. The outcome will enable teachers to employ appropriate teaching technique and also strengthen a good pupil-teacher relationship to ease unnecessary tension on students in their lesson delivery. Next, will build confidence in students and make them love the subject they dreaded most so that they can advance to higher academic level of education.
Lastly, this study will be beneficial to the policy maker and curriculum developers in preparation curriculum materials and implementation of policies for the basic schools of the country.

Limitations
Adequate time was difficult to come by in obtaining relevant information for this project. I have really come to notice that the process of gathering information from the basic school in the area of Puncak Alam schools needs time.
Some colleague teachers were reluctant to open up to me for reasons best known to them. Truancy also had its fair share on the problem encountered especially among those from the coastal towns. Moreover, combining the research work with teaching which involves preparation of lesson notes, weekly one-on-one to and from the course center coupled with preparation of learning materials was a hectic task.

Delimitation

I would have wished to cover all schools in Puncak Alam but due to time, financial and other constraints, the researcher concentrated on only one school in Puncak Alam even within this the scope of the researcher it again limited to form one class  from which only 12 pupils were sampled.

 
 Limitations and Delimitations
The limitation of this finding is each student have different background of family. It may affect the finding since higher educated parents have more knowledge to share with their children. Besides, favoritism toward student is one of limitation in this finding. Some teachers more choose to give more attention the students who are more excellent in exam. Not only that, the attitude of students who are do not care about their education.

I decide to choose the students that study around Selangor and the students are in Form 4 and Form 5 as my respondent since these students will take Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) before they left secondary school and to further their studies.

      The abolishment of class streaming as a new change in the curriculum justifies the need for more effective teaching and learning instruction in the classroom. This is due to students having different abilities and learning styles placed in the same classroom. This study will be a significant endeavor in promoting the importance of differentiated instruction to teach literacy and reading to L2 students in Malaysia. Hopefully, the findings of this study will lead to an education where no child is left behind and different abilities are embraced.      Differentiated instructions encourage self-studying and collaborative learning. This finding will aid in producing quality students and citizens who are responsible to their own learning. 

        Moreover, the findings in this study will be helpful to teachers as it provides research data that proves the effectiveness of differentiated instruction. Hopefully, it will help the teachers in modifying their curriculum and instruction based on strategies that suits the students most. By using differentiated instruction in the classroom, teachers will have more flexibility in delivering the content to the students. Teachers will have more control in the teaching and learning session as they will be responsible in delivering content suitable to the students’ level of ability.  Next, the findings of this research will also be useful to future teachers as a preparation to give the best possible instruction in the classroom.

       This research will also serve as a future reference for research that can be explored related to this topic.

       Furthermore, this research will help the country to realize the National Education Philosophy (NEP) to develop the potential of individuals holistically. By using differentiated instruction in the classroom, teachers can focus more on developing students holistically rather than just focusing on academic achievements.

Limitations
       This study has potential limitations. The first one is limited access to data. This study involves data collection of classroom observation, interviews and surveys. Due to the current situation where the world is facing COVID-19 pandemic and schools are temporarily shut down, the researcher have limited access to these respondents. One possible way to overcome this limitation in the future is to conduct a small scale data collection process where only a few respondents are being surveyed at a time. The researcher can survey a few group of respondents at different time.

         Another potential limitation for this study is time constraints. This research has time limitation where the researcher only has one semester or four months to finish the research. The findings of this research must be submitted before the deadline. This will affect the depth of the research and the data collection process as the researcher will have limited time to collect data and generate the findings. But, this study will only be focusing on the effectiveness of differentiated instruction in English language classroom. One possible way to improve this situation is for researcher to begin early in data collecting process and allocate more time to do more in-depth research.

           Other than that, a potential limitation for this study is sample bias. This research will be sampling on school which have abolished class streaming and have mixed-ability classroom. But, a few schools in Malaysia have yet to abolish class streaming thoroughly. Some schools might still stream students according to their academic abilities. Thus, the findings of this research might not reflect the general student population. For future studies, researchers might want to do background studies of the implementation of mixed-ability classroom first.

Delimitations
       This study is a descriptive research which focuses on secondary school students. The research sample is composed of ninety (90) from Form 1 students and three (3) teachers from SMK Saujana Utama, Selangor. The data gathering method used was classroom observation, surveys and interviews. This research uses simple random sampling and convenience sampling in which an equal representation for gender, social background and ability level among the respondents was applied.  

           The primary data gathering method was classroom observation to determine students’ performance and participation rate with differentiated instruction used by the teachers in the classroom. Interviews and surveys were used to gather students’ and teachers’ opinions and experiences on differentiated instruction in the classroom.

           The study was delimited to Form 1 students from SMK Saujana Utama. SMK Saujana Utama is picked as the sample frame because it is located in the sub-urban area where the background of the students does not vary much between students from the rural and urban area. This factor will make the data more generalized.  

This study will be beneficial to all parents out there as it is mainly focusing on the significance of parental involvement to encourage children’s academic achievement. Other than that, it is important to society in general as children at an early age needs social development. It is a process by which a child learns to interact and imitate the actions of others around them. As they develop and perceive their own individuality within their community, they also gain skills to communicate and learn with other people. Children will process their actions and that can lead to a better cognitive thinking to boost academic achievement in the future.

7.0 LIMITATIONS AND DELIMITATIONS
The study has two notable limitations that may constrain its generalizability. First, due to the world’s current situation because of the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has undoubtedly put forth a remarkably bad effect on the day to day life of the entire human society and also on the world economy. It is impossible to collect the needed data during the pandemic as everyone were stuck at home as directed by the government.  But it is for the best, collecting data can be continue once the world has succeed in fighting it. Secondly, theoretically, global measures of parents’ home-based practices may contain indicators that are unrelated, as they represent many different facets of the home-environment. It is crucial for parents to provide their children an environment that positively influences their thoughts, stimulates their interest in various tasks and encourage learning in different settings. Even our attitude speaks volume. Our language skills, manners, and actions – every single thing we do is taken in by the child’s developing brain. As people say, ‘Home is the very first school’. Parents need to do their best to offer productive experiences at home.

The definitions used in this study are as follows:

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2015), trigonometry is defined as the type of mathematics that deals with the relationship between the sides and angles of the triangles . For the purpose of the term trigonometry it refers to the students performance in trigonometry topics.

According to The Glossary of Education Reform (2015), class size is defined to the number of students in a given course or classroom, specially either (1) the number of students being taught by individual teachers in a course or classroom or (2) the average number of students being taught by teachers in a school, district, or education system. For the purpose of the term class size it refers to how the class size affects the students mathematics performance.

According to the Ministry of Education (MOE), upper secondary refers to Form 4 and Form 5 students who age between 16 - 17. For the purpose of the term upper secondary it refers to the target population of this research.

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2015), performance is defined as the act or process of performing a task, an action. For the purpose of the term performance it refers to the performance of students in overcrowded class.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, trigonometry is based on the study of right-angle triangles. It is also concerned with the relationship between the side and angles of the triangles and their measurement. Trigonometry is also known to be an essential component in mathematics subject, although its laws and formulas, the plural form of the equation, are applicable to areas ranging from architecture to navigation. For instance, trigonometry is being used for architecture and Egyptians use it to build The Pyramid. However, the decline performance in the trigonometry topic becomes the problem that most of the students face in schools. This is because trigonometry is a mathematics topic that students claim to be difficult to learn and score. Moreover, this research will focus to investigate the level of students motivation towards learning trigonometry, the impact of students' population in their performance and also the steps or ways to enhance students motivation toward learning trigonometry. This is important in determining the causes that affect students' performance towards their learning in trigonometry topics so that it can assist several groups especially to students as they can improve themselves in learning trigonometry, to teachers as they can enhance the method or strategy to tackle students attention in the class, to educational planner and also to the government as well as the society at large.. Thus, this research will describe more on factors affecting the declining of student performance in trigonometry topics among secondary school students. The literature review of the topics related to this study will explain the scientific outlook on the students’ performance in trigonometry in the next chapter. 

Data that produced from this research will give a contribution to society as Mathematics subject is an important subject in the education field. There is a higher demand for Mathematics teacher which indicates the need for more effective, life-changing approaches. Thus, a school that apply the cooperative learning method will be able to train students better. Teacher in the school can guide the administrators on what should be emphasized in the school curriculum to improve students’ performance in mathematics. For the researcher, the research can help them improve the critical areas in the educational process that many researchers were not able to explore.

The limitation of this study is that it takes some time to collect the data. We need to at least a few times time to do cooperative learning method in a class because Mathematics class has three class a week. Each class has a one-hour duration, so it is not enough to apply this method because observation is needed in this study. Students need to be able to apply the method efficiently since this method is effective to improve their academic result. Another limitation is to find a teacher that agree to do this method because it might disturb her teaching and class time. Every teacher has their own style, but they are mostly in a traditional style which is teacher-centred style. Since this method is focused on student-centred style, it can be uncomfortable for the teacher to act as a facilitator in the class. Moreover, this study is limited only in Puncak Alam schools because of the time constraint and financial problem. The researcher cannot afford to go a further school as it costs more time and money to go back and forth to the school to collect the data.

This research focuses on secondary school students in Puncak Alam schools. The delimitation in this study is a sample size where the study is conducted at Saujana Utama school since it is nearer to UiTM Puncak Alam. The sample of this research consists of one class of Form 4 students and one Mathematics teacher. The data is collected first with observation in the class then followed by surveys and interviews. This is to determine students’ participation in the class and their reaction to the method before interviewing students’ perspective learning using a cooperative method.

 The outcome of this research will contribute to the society in getting deep information on the issue of declining results of Mathematics subject among students in Malaysia.  This research will expose the reason of declining results in Mathematics subject, the effect, and how to overcome this issue. The main targeted group in this research is absolutely for students. This is because this issue is running around students in Malaysia and this research is wanting them to take advantage of this opportunity to improve themselves. Next, this research is aiming the teachers and parents so that they are able to know the causes on why Mathematics is struggling their students and children in which it give impact to students. Thus, they can find a better strategies to give a new light and hope for students to gain high achievement in Mathematics. 

 
 Limitations and Delimitations   

The limitation in the research is time consumption. As we know that schools’ standards in Malaysia held the lecture from the beginning towards the end of the year. Then, the students will take the examination at the end of the year. This research is time consuming as it is using backward approach in which it need to wait for students to have their examination first, then the results of the examination will be collect and being observed. From the observation of the results, we will investigate back the problem while they are studying Mathematics in class. Not only that, the pandemic attack in all around the world including Malaysia is affecting examination schedule. The Ministry of Education has announced that several examination like UPSR and PT3 are cancelled due to the Covid-19 outbreak and will find an alternative method. This will affect the process of collecting data and observation of students in school.  

This research is focusing on student in secondary school in Selangor whose taking a Form Three's Assessment (PT3) examination. This is because the researcher wants to observe their Mathematics’ result and investigate the cause of the declining results, hence the researcher can recommending ways to overcome the factor that they can carry forward for the preparation for Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination.

 

This study is significant to the students, parents, teachers, and society. The students can improve their understanding and motivation in learning Mathematics and can keep on track for what they learn in class with other students despite their disabilities. Then, the parents can be more aware on their children disability and always be prepared to serve children with dyscalculia on their educational tools in learning Mathematics. Besides, the teachers can less worry about the student’s achievement in examination and their participation during Mathematics learning in class because their parents have boosted the students’ confident level by encouraging them in answering questions. Lastly, the society whom have the power in mind setting can contribute in spreading positive thinking towards the students with dyscalculia that they are not stupid and lazy but they just need support and encouragement in their learning.     

LIMITATIONS

One of the main constraints to this study is the uncontrolled current situation of the world with the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. This will greatly influence the interpretation of the findings of my research. All schools and institutions in Malaysia had to close along the Restricted Movement Order (RMO) period restricted by the government to curb the movement of people in view of the Covid-19 spike. So directly, I cannot access the schools to get the sample of the students to complete the surveys for my research. Next, the cooperation level from the parents to share their encounter of having children with dyscalculia and how they cope with their learning. They will get through selective memory to remember past events along their engagement to the children learning. Hence this will contain several potential sources of bias and lead to incongruent with data from other sources. 

 DELIMITATIONS

This research is focusing on the standard 4, 5 and 6 students of a school in Puncak Alam who are experiencing dyscalculia in learning. To identify the students with dyscalculia, screening test will be done first to the standard 4, 5 and 6 students before the research is held. Since delimitation has to narrow the population to the sample, so the research has delimited to the parents of the standard 4, 5 and 6 students in a school in Puncak Alam with dyscalculia. Then, interview sessions will be conducted with the parents to know how they cope with the student’s disability at home.

There are some limitations for this research to be conducted. This research might not be generalized well as this research only covered secondary schools in Selangor area. It is limited to only one school in Puncak Alam area and only one class to be tested as sample.  Even though todays education are stressed on classroom seating arrangement which lead to great opportunity to conduct this research but it requires more time to observe the students’ performance in mathematics which normally opposes a few schools’ permission  that let the research be conducted in very limited time. 

 

This research will be conducted in secondary school in Puncak Alam area. The students need to be examine by giving them a set of mathematics questions to identify their current level of understanding in mathematics before the seating plan changes. After obtain the result, students need to change their seating position according to their rank of the previous test score as the highest need to be seated with the lowest, second highest need to be seated with second lowest and so on and they need to seat with their new partner until the second test is conducted. The students need to be tested twice to see the difference before and after the seating plan changes whether there is an improvement in their understanding or not. This research engage students to do cooperative and collaborative learning as stated under classroom activities in PAK-21 as the students with higher score need to be the mentor for the lower score students.