Moderating Effects of Additional Mathematics’ Achievement During SPM on the Relationship Between Performance in Modern Mathematics and Mathematical Errors Occurrences: A Case Study of MDAB Students in UiTM Melaka

This study was intended to identify nine types of mathematical errors with 20% and more occurrences made by students when answering Intensive Mathematics final examination paper.From the findings, it can be concluded that the exhibition of concept errors and transformation errors were both significantly different across performance levels in Modern Mathematics and Additional Mathematics. Both concept and transformation errors were more obvious among those less performing students. However, the exhibition of comprehension errors, number operation errors and factoring errors were approximately similar across the performance levels of Modern Mathematics and Additional Mathematics. For random, calculation and number form conversion errors, there were significant differences in committing the errors across performance levels in Modern Mathematics. Meanwhile, there were similarities in making random, calculation and number form conversion errors across performance levels in Additional Mathematics. Results also revealed that students who did not learn Additional Mathematics during secondary school exhibited significantly more concept errors, comprehension errors, expanding errors and transformation errors than students who learnt the subject in school. It is also concluded that the dummy variable, taking or not taking Additional Mathematics moderates the relationship between Modern Mathematics’ grade point and total occurrences of exhibiting mathematical errors.


INTRODUCTION
Modern Mathematics is one of the core subjects during SPM. It is a compulsory subject and students must obtain at least a pass for the subject in SPM. A pass in the subject is very important since it is the basic requirement to pursue their study to tertiary education. On the other hand, Additional Mathematics is an optional subject for SPM. Therefore, students are given an option whether take or not to take the subject during SPM. It is very crucial for students to be skilful in Mathematics especially to those who are pursuing their studies in the tertiary education in the field of science and technology, management sciences and social sciences.
When solving mathematical problems, some students frequently make mathematical errors. Even having early exposure to basic mathematics in school, this problem seems to arise at tertiary level especially to groups of prediploma students, which in UiTM is commonly known as MDAB.
From SPM results, it was found that the performance of MDAB students in Modern Mathematics ranges from below average to average grades. Majority of the students did not sit for Additional Mathematics during SPM. Even if they took the subject, many failed the subject ASM Science Journal, Volume 13, 2020 2 with grade G. For this group of students, when answering mathematics questions, they frequently make mistakes or errors. Therefore, it is important to investigate whether taking or not taking Additional Mathematics during SPM has an effect in committing mathematical errors in answering mathematics question.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW
A study by Siti Balqis et. al., (2017) Ismail (2009) and Andersson and Lyxell (2007), these difficulties would affect the students in learning mathematics and hence resulting in making a lot of mathematical errors. Difficulties in thinking could also affect decision making during problem-solving activity that would consequently lead to deterioration in mathematics achievement (Miranda, 2006).

III. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Based on research done previously, Mohd Zulfabli and Siti Salwa (2014) conducted a study in comparing SPM

Mathematics results with a course on Mechanical
Engineering programs namely Thermodynamics 1 (JJ207).
They found that there was a very strong significant relationship between SPM results and the student's performance in the subject taken in diploma. Thus, the conceptual framework of this study is presented in Figure 1 where the dependent variable is the number of occurrences

IV. METHODOLOGY
The first mathematical error found for each answered item question in each script, the type of mathematical errors was ASM Science Journal, Volume 13, 2020 3 identified. The identified types of mathematical errors were described or defined to ease the data collection and data analysis processes are listed in Table I.

Mathematics (Take and Do Not Take)
Based on the analysis of the similarities and differences of In contrast, the errors were more rampant among those who did not take Additional Mathematics group of students.

C. Differences of Committing Types of Mathematical Errors between Students Taking or Not Taking Additional Mathematics during SPM
The analysis results revealed that students who did not take Additional Mathematics (M = 2.06) during SPM made significantly (t = 3.284 ; p < 0.05) more comprehension errors than students who took the subject (M= 1.04) during SPM. It was also found that students who did not take Additional Mathematics (mean = 4.81) committed significantly (t = 3.374 ; p < 0.05) more concept errors than students who took the subject (mean = 2.89). As for making more expanding errors, it was noticed that students who However, there were no differences in exhibiting number operation errors, calculation errors, factoring errors and random errors between these two groups of students.  Hence, it is recommended that educators who are teaching Mathematics subjects adopted teaching strategies as suggested by Marzano (2000). He emphasized that error analysis is at the top of the higher-level thinking skills as the strategies required students to create, analyse, and even prove their claim. Teachers are considered as effective if only students are engaged in the learning processes. If students can find and explain errors in the learning process, then it shows that they really understand the concepts that are being used. It is recommended that further research is conducted by using the strategies as suggested by Marzano (2000).

D. Moderating Effects of Additional
VII.