Abstract:
The purposes of this research were 1) to study number senses of eighth grade students and 2) to compare number senses of eighth grade students with different mathematics learning achievements and backgrounds. The subjects were 549 eighth grade students in schools under the office of the basic education commission in Bangkok. The research instrument was number sense test which composed of objective and subjects sections. The reliability of the objective section is 0.72, the reliability of the subjective section is 0.89. The indexes of discrimination are between 0.24 0.53 and indexes of difficulty are between 0.26 0.76. The data were analyzed by using arithmetic mean, standard deviation, one-way ANOVA , t- test and Sheffe' method. The results of this research reveal that: 1. number senses of eighth grade students were lower than minimum criteria in total and classification of 7 categories. 2. eighth grade students with high, medium and low mathematics learning achievements had different number senses at 0.05 level of significance. Students with high mathematics learning achievements had better number senses than students with medium and low mathematics learning achievements and students with medium mathematics learning achievements had better number senses than students with low mathematics learning achievements at 0.05 level of significance in total and classification of 7 categories. 3. number senses of students with different backgrounds in educational region, doing mathematics homework, fathers education, mothers education, fathers occupation, mothers occupation and parents advise were different at 0.05 level of significance. It was found that students in educational region 3 had better number senses than those in educational region 2 and educational region 1. Students in educational region 2 had better number senses than those in educational region 1.Students who do mathematics homework without any advise, with some advise, and always be adviced had better number senses than those who copy homework from friends. Students whose father got bachelor degrees had better number senses than students whose father got degrees lower than bachelor level. Students whose mother got bachelor degrees had better number senses than students whose mother got degrees lower than bachelor level. Students whose father worked in the government offices had better number senses than students whose father worked for freelance. Students whose mother worked in the government offices had better number senses than students whose mother worked for freelance. Students who got advise in mathematics for 1 3 days a week had better number senses than students who got advise in mathematics for 4 6 days a week