Students think math most difficult

By Jung Min-ho

Six out of 10 elementary school students in Korea think math is the most difficult subject, a poll showed Tuesday.

Among 22,088 students surveyed last month by i-Scream Home-Learn, a private educational institution, 57 percent of first and second graders said that math is the most difficult subject, followed by Korean (25 percent).

Also, 63 percent of third to six graders said math is the most difficult, followed by social science (20 percent), Korean (9 percent) and science (8 percent).

When asked about the most difficult part of math, 67 percent of first and second graders said arithmetic operations, followed by time (12 percent) and measurement (11 percent).

Meanwhile, 32 percent of third to six graders find arithmetic operations most difficult, followed by divisor and multiple (24 percent) and fraction (14 percent).

Among first and second graders, while 61 percent of female students said math is the most difficult, only 39 percent of men said so. But the gap was narrower among third to six graders; while 56 percent of women find math most difficult, 44 percent of men said so.

Choi Hyung-soon, an owner of the institute, said, in the long run, the step-by-step approach is the most important for elementary school students to learn math.

“Instead of teaching children how to solve difficult math questions early, it is important to teach them based on their levels so that they can keep their interest in math,” Choi said.

In 2013, Korea ranked top among OECD nations in terms of schoolchildren’s performance in math and reading, for the third time after 2006 and 2009. There, Korea ranked fifth among 65 countries after China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.