The present study investigated the studying strategies in Differential Calculus of the students in relation to their competency. There were several assumptions in the past studies on how the studying strategies explain the competency of the students. The present research gathered the common studying strategies and formulated a checklist to be answered along with a competency test. The final grade and the test score of the students were merged to determine their rank relative to the other respondents. Using chi-squared with critical values between 5.99 and 9.21, the studying strategies of the upper and lower groups were assessed whether there is a significant difference and relationship to their competency in Differential calculus. Those studying strategies that have a significant relationship are grouped which is then concluded as the effective studying strategies in Differential Calculus.
Keywords: Differential Calculus, studying strategies, competency, grades, mathematics, test scores
Introduction Differential Calculus is a subfield of calculus which deals with the change of rates at which quantities change. It is learned in schools because of so many reasons. Firstly, the mastery of this field is needed because it plays a major role in applications to physics and engineering, thus, it is a prerequisite to higher education in mathematics. Secondly, it also provides theoretical platforms on which applied methods are built on. Another justification for learning this field is that it provides analysis which has two distinct but interactive branches according to the types of functions that are studied: namely, real analysis, which focuses on functions whose domains consist of real numbers, and complex analysis, which deals with functions of a complex variable. This seems like a small distinction, but it turns out to have enormous implications for the theory and results in two very different kinds of subjects. Both have important applications.
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