THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING ACHIEVEMENT, CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING, AND MATHEMATICAL ANALYTICAL THINKING SKILLS THROUGH COLLABORATIVE ACTIVE LEARNING ON LIMITS AND DERIVATIVES

Abstract

This research employed a one-group quasi-experimental design with three objectives: 1) To examine the learning achievement of first-year undergraduate students in the topics of limits and derivatives after participating in cooperative active learning, 2) To investigate students’ conceptual understanding and analytical thinking skills, and 3) to examine students’ satisfaction with the instructional approach. The sample consisted of 68 first-year undergraduate students, selected through purposive sampling from those enrolled in the General Mathematics course during the first semester of the 2025 academic year. The research instruments included cooperative active learning lesson plans integrating a three-stage instructional process (logical organization, peer interaction, and explanatory reflection), a learning achievement test, a conceptual understanding and analytical thinking assessment, and a student satisfaction questionnaire.
All instruments were validated by three experts, yielding Item-Objective Congruence (IOC) values ranging from 0.67 to 1.00, and demonstrated acceptable reliability coefficients ranging from 0.86 to 0.91. Data were analyzed using mean (), standard deviation (S.D.), and dependent samples t-test. The findings revealed that: 1) Post-learning achievement was significantly higher than pre-learning achievement at the .05 level; 2) Students achieved a very good level of conceptual understanding and analytical thinking skills ( = 3.85); and 3) Student satisfaction with the learning management was at a high level ( = 4.46). The results indicate that cooperative active learning integrating the three-stage instructional process effectively transformed the highly abstract concepts of limits and derivatives into concrete understanding and provided an effective approach for enhancing students’ mathematical skills.