This action research study examined the performance of convenient sampling of fourty-five Year 9 students in solving word problems involving percentage from two classes in one government secondary school in Brunei Darussalam, attempting to use Bar Model as a solving strategy.  Data was gathered quantitatively through written tests in the form of six word problem items as pre-test and post-test.  The overall mean score of the pre-test was 0.93 indicating that the performance of the participating Year 9 students in solving word problems involving percentage was low to begin with. Intervention did produce a gain in the post-test mean to 2.87.  Although this mean post-tests marks in still lower than the passing mark of the test, paired-sample t-test provided evidence of significance, thus proving that Bar Model Method had positive effect to the performance of word problem involving percentage.

 

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Pre-test and Post-test

 

 

Mean(M)

N

Std. Deviation(SD)

Std. error Mean

Pair 1

Pre -Test

0.93

45

0.915

0.136

Post-Test

2.87

45

1.531

0.228

 

 

Further analysis of comparison between the students’ overall marks of students in pre-test and post-test (Figure 1) also provided evidence that there was an increase in overall marks, with almost all except two students failed the pre-test to twenty-six students achieving marks above passing mark of 3.

 

 

Figure 1. Distribution of students’overall marks in pre-test and post-test

 

When correct attempts by students in the pre-test and post-test items were compared (Figure 2), the post-test showed increase compared to pre-test in every items, even those with no attempts in pre-test (item 4 and 6).  The biggest increase was seen in item 2. This provide further evidence that there is overall improvement in students’ performance in word problems related to percentage after the use of Bar Model as intervention.

 

 

Figure 2. Comparison of number of correct items between pre-test and post-test.

 

Keywords: Bar Model, Percentage, Performance, Word Problem