Abstract
Learning mathematics is challenging to learners. It is a unique subject and it is a fundamental part of the curriculum yet Scarpello (2007) reported that seventy-five percent of Americans stop the study of mathematics and stay away from many careers related to mathematics. This study focused on the learners’ difficulties encountered in learning mathematics and teacher-related variables in relation to academic achievement of low performing learners in mathematics. A researcher-made survey questionnaire was administered to 61 low performing learners of Mandanas Elementary School. The learners were purposively identified by their respective classroom advisers and have an average grade of 75 to 79 in mathematics for the first and second quarter of the academic year 2019-2020. The average grade of learners is the basis of the academic achievement of the learners and stand as the dependent variable in this study. The result shows that the learners are indeed having difficulties in learning mathematics in terms of their interest and study habits. The teacher-related variables such as personality traits, teaching skills, and instructional materials used by the teacher gained a positive rating from the learners. The result depicts that there is no significant relationship between the learners’ difficulties encountered and teacher-related variables. This means that teacher-related variables or the performance of the teachers do not affect the difficulties encountered by the learners in mathematics as perceived by the learners. Finally, both the learners’ difficulties and teacher-related variables have no substantial evidence to affect the academic achievement of the low performing learners in mathematics.
