Prioritization of students understanding in rules of differentiation using fuzzy soft matrices and lambda - Max method

Abstract

Calculus is one of the most important courses especially for undergraduate students in many fields of study. Some researchers have identified the causes of the high failure rate which includes lack of basic foundation of mathematics and basic concept of differentiation. Aside from that, the main problems that can be seen among students are the difficulty in identifying the type of function in differentiation and identifying the suitable method to solve a particular problem. There are three rules included in differentiation which are the Chain Rule, Product Rule and Quotient Rule. This study is conducted to examine the level of understanding of the students on the function and the derivative techniques after applying derivative game applications in this course. This paper is based on Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP) which use fuzzy number in pair-wise comparison matrix. The prioritization of students' understanding in differentiation rules will then be measured by Fuzzy AHP using Lambda-max method. The highest among the three rules in differentiation will considered as a result. The findings of this study indicated that the highest score with 0.4700 is the Chain Rule. This study can help lectures to know the level or understanding among three rules in differentiation and lecturer well prepared their teaching materials in the classroom as well as to reduce the failure rate among students in this course.