Students' Mathematics Comprehension and Previous Mathematics Performance (PMP): Its Impact on Students' Conceptual Understanding in Determining Area of Plane Regions in Integral Calculus

The study aimed to determine the levels of students' mathematics comprehension and previous mathematics performance and their conceptual understanding in finding the area of plane regions in Integral calculus. It also determined the influence of students' personal attributes on their conceptual understanding of finding the area in calculus. A 7-item teacher-made open-ended test was administered after the discussion of finding the area of plane regions between curves to measure students' conceptual understanding of the topic and questionnaires to determine the personal attributes. The data collected were analyzed using mean, percentage, standard deviation and multiple linear regressions. Results revealed that students' previous mathematics background is an important factor to students' to possess a profound understanding of the concept of finding the area of plane regions in Integral calculus; while mathematics comprehension does not hinder students' conceptual understanding in determining the area of plane regions in Integral Calculus. The researcher then recommends that teachers should teach mathematics subject with more emphasis on the conceptual understanding rather than merely stressing the procedures, students should have mastered the foundation subjects to excel in Calculus like Arithmetic and Algebra; and the mathematics faculty of MUST should conduct training to high school mathematics teachers on how to develop the conceptual understanding of mathematics.

Keywords: mathematics comprehension, previous mathematics performance, conceptual understanding, area of plane regions, integral calculus