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INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS
ROLE OF INTEGRATED SECONDARY SCHOOL MATHEMATICS
ON LEARNING BUSINESS MATHEMATICS
Shahinshah Babar Khan
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Model College, Islamabad.
Shaheen Ashraf Taherkheli
Research Associate, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad.
Abstract
The main purpose of teaching Mathematics at secondary level is to prepare such students
who can think critically and should able to utilize it in different fields of life. On one
hand, it is a common perception that mathematics is very important subject an on the
other hand, students think why they learn mathematics at secondary level?, because to
them, at this level, mathematics is abstract in nature and is the name of just putting values
in formulas and nothing more. In Pakistan, two decades ago, there was general
mathematics for the students of humanities and the main purpose of teaching general
mathematics was to provide base foundation to the students who would join fields like
humanities and business education in future. General mathematics was consisting on such
topics, which have been seen in action in day-to-day life. In addition, there was a portion
of geometry, it is a fact that everything in nature is formed on the principles of geometry
but understanding of geometry is a little bit difficult so it always remain a horrible thing
to the humanities‘ students. Currently, Integrated mathematics is compulsory for both
science and humanities‘ students. Broadly, integrated mathematics of secondary level
consists of three parts, i.e sets and numbers, algebra ,geometry and trigonometry. In
Pakistan, business education is one of the favorite fields for young generation. The
present study tried to find out whether integrated mathematics is helpful in business
education. The sample for the study was the students of M.Com and MBA. A
questionnaire was developed on five point Likert scale. Each Statement was checked by
using chi-square technique.
Kwywords: Role , Integrated Secondary School Mathematics , Learning Business
Mathematics
1. Introduction
In Pakistan, the aim of teaching mathematics at school level is to prepare such students
who think logically and play their role in the development of society. At primary stage,
students learn four basic operations, used in mathematics, i.e addition, subtraction,
division and multiplication, commonly known as arithmetic.. At this stage, students also
learn basic definitions of geometry, i.e. circle, rectangle etc, though primary level
students are not so mature to understand these basic ideas of geometry. In addition, they
come across to the basic Mathematical shapes that they saw around them in the real
world. When these students join elementary level, on very first day in grade 6, they met
the concept of sets, teacher tell them that ―set is a collection of well-defined and distinct
objects‖. Students very comfortably understand this, and then they learn the definition of
null set or empty set. Teacher says, ―The set which has no element is known as null set‖.
This definition confused the students, they ask, if there is no element, how it would be a
set and this confusion remains with majority of the students even after completing their
COPY RIGHT © 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 189
JANUARY 2011
VOL 2, NO 9
Listed in ULRICH’S