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A case study was carried out on students who were being exposed to some theoretical concepts of the correlation and regression topics to investigate their ability to compute and interpret the Pearson's correlation coefficient and the slope of regression. The findings revealed that a low percentage of students (19.43%) successfully completed their interpretation of correlation coefficient and 33.18% of the students managed to interpret the computed value of regression slope completely. It was also found that the students' ability to interpret regression slope was significantly associated with the ability to interpret the correlation coefficient correctly. It is hoped that the findings obtained from this study will shed some light on improving teaching practices of statistics educators so as to help students in gaining better understanding on interpreting the correlation and regression analysis.

In an effort to understand the problems and difficulties students faced in learning fractions, a study was carried out on Form 1 students from four different types of secondary schools in Perlis, Malaysia. Five different questions on proper fractions were constructed involving two fractions with equal and different denominators, and more than two fractions with different denominators. A Rasch analysis was done on the responses to help assess their level of conceptual understanding.The whole number concept was very dominant as some of the students treated the numerators and denominators separately, showing their confusion and unstable thinking in fractions learning.Keywords: Fraction understanding, proper fraction, whole number, Rasch analysis eISSN 2514-7528 © 2017 Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. https://doi.org/10.21834/jabs.v2i2.177 Abdol Razak, F., et.al. / Journal of ASIAN Behavioural Studies, jABs, 2(2), Jan / Mar 2017 (p.27-35) 28 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncnd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for EnvironmentBehaviour Studies), Faculty of IntroductionFraction is a number that expresses part of a group. Primary students in Malaysia are exposed to the fractions learning for four years beginning as early as Year 3. In Year 4, students are introduced to proper fractions and are required to name and write proper fractions with denominators up to ten, express equivalent fractions to proper fractions, add two proper fractions with denominators up to ten, and subtract proper fractions with denominators up to ten (Mathematics Year 4, 2006). By the end of Year 6, these students should be able to understand proper fractions as well as improper fractions and mixed numbers, and be competent enough with the algorithms that are connected to fractions (Mathematics Year 6, 2006).Conceptual understanding of fractions is a prerequisite to dealing with other areas of mathematics. The conceptual understanding develops when students are able to connect between concepts and procedures and can explain why some facts are consequences of others (National Research Council, 2001;Wong and Evans, 2007). Thus, misconception in fraction learning may cause problems with other domains in mathematics such as algebra, measurement, ratio and proportion concepts (Behr, Lesh, Post, & Silver, 1983). In an early study by Stephens (2002, 2006), students were found to demonstrate inappropriate use of whole number thinking strategies to fraction problems. Students who were able to order whole numbers failed to realize that this thinking strategy was only applicable for fractions with same denominators. Since fractions make up an integral part of the Malaysia primary school curriculum, it is therefore important to examine whether by the end of Year 6, students do have a g...

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This study aims to investigate students’ ability to write a correct hypothesis based on the statement referring to regression coefficients.  Different statements of regression coefficients, specifically the slope were given in the standard format of test questions and the students were asked to conduct an appropriate hypothesis test. From the decision made, the students also had to provide suitable conclusions on each of the tests conducted. 197 answer scripts were inspected and the focus was given to the hypothesis statement and the conclusion provided by the students. The results indicated that students were able to write proper hypothesis statement for a regression coefficient that directly refers to the slope of the variable. However, they failed to provide correct hypothesis when they had to translate the definition of slope to an appropriate hypothesis statement. Despite their ability to write simple hypothesis for regression slope, they still had difficulties in providing conclusions for the tests conducted. The study also clearly revealed that even though some of the students managed to write proper conclusions, they did not correspond to the hypothesis statements given earlier, as the conclusions made were merely based on the question statement.