Abstract:
Students’ mathematical achievements in secondary school have an influence on
their performance in higher studies and their future careers. Having a solid
background in mathematics helps students develop sophisticated perspectives and
offer more career options. The importance of mathematical learning has repeatedly
been emphasized by educators. Therefore, this research developed a model to
explain mathematics performance. In this study, secondary level students’
mathematics examination marks were analyzed with a particular focus on students
at grade ten in Matara educational zone. This examination was held by Ministry of
Education. This research trot out, how important are the school and student level
variables in explaining differences in mathematics performance, what
characteristics of schools and students are linked to the mathematics achievements
and are there any indication of differential effectiveness within school and between
schools. Multilevel linear modeling was employed to analyze the data. Seven
variables at the student level and two variables at the school level were used to
build the two-level hierarchical linear model in order to predict the status of
students’ mathematics performance. The final model reveals that one variable at
the school level which is school type is significant predictor of students’
mathematics performance. At the student level, doing homework, mother’s
education, student living area and student gender are significant factors. The
results reveal that school level account for 27% of the overall variance in
mathematics performance while 73% of overall variance was captured by student
level within schools. This study further suggests that within school differences are
far larger than between school differences.
