• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.109-122
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• 2009

This study investigates the change in two theoretical constructs, attitudes toward mathematics and mathematics self-efficacy, among college students involved in a learning community model. The case of this study was a developmental mathematics class offered at a historically black college located in the southeastern United States. Subjects included 31 students enrolled in an introductory mathematics course, some of whom participated in a learning community (treatment group). The participants completed mathematics attitudes and mathematics efficacy instruments twice: at the beginning of the semester and again at the end. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and a non-parametric statistic. The results showed that students' attitudes toward mathematics and mathematics self-efficacy are strongly correlated; the mathematical problem-solving efficacy changed significantly over time and it is significantly higher in the treatment group than in the control group; and the treatment group produced better outcomes. These findings indicate that a learning community model can increase students' mathematics self-efficacy beliefs. It is recommended that mathematics self-efficacy and attitudes toward mathematics be measured over an extended period of time when a learning community is implemented.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Mathematical Education Conference
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• 2010.04a
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• pp.21-28
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• 2010

It is common that whoever is having a very low achievement level in mathematics has a poor attitude toward mathematics. However, it is totally opposite when we look at the case of Korean students. On several studies on international comparisons in mathematics and science achievement, Korean students recorded a top ranks among the nations. However, their attitudes toward mathematics are very poor; almost at the bottom in international assessment among other countries compared to international peers. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between students' attitudes toward mathematics and teaching methods and to analyze findings of research articles published within the last 15 years. These findings will contribute not only to understanding a relationship between students' attitudes toward mathematics and teaching methods, but to provide guidelines for how students' attitudes toward mathematics can be improved.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.195-206
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of teacher on fourth-grade students' attitudes toward mathematics using data from TIMSS 2011. Students' attitudes toward mathematics included interest in learning mathematics, interest in mathematics lessons, and confidence in their mathematics ability. Teacher factors included mathematics professional development, confidence in teaching mathematics, teacher-centered mathematics instruction, and enhancing student mathematical thinking. The two level Hierarchical Linear Model was employed to analyze the relationship between teacher factors and student attitudes. Results showed that teacher-centered mathematics instruction significantly and positively predicted students' confidence about their mathematics ability. The findings suggest that school systems and mathematics educators need to provide teachers with the curriculum, assessment, and research-based practices and knowledge to overcome the obstacles to change their mathematics classroom.

• School Mathematics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.775-793
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• 2017

In this study, instruments were developed to measure of mathematics attitudes by conceptualization of epistemological beliefs as a cognitive dimension, mindfulness as a conative dimension, affect as an affective dimension. Perry's epistemological development scheme and Langer's mindfulness theory was noticed as a theoretical approach. Exploratory factor and confirmatory factor analyses, and a reliability test were assessed. This article suggest a new framework for analysing attitudes toward mathematics and changes in attitudes toward mathematics.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.63 no.1
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• pp.35-61
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to examine changes in Korean middle school students' affective attitudes toward mathematics over the past 5 cycles of TIMSS. To this end, we first analyzed the changes in students' affective attitudes towards mathematics in five major countries, and then analyzed the changes in Korean students' affective attitudes toward mathematics by item. As a result of the study, there were positive changes in Korean students' interest, confidence, and value perception of mathematics during the recent 5 cycle of TIMSS. Korean male students' affective attitude toward mathematics is higher than that of female students, and the gender gap has been increasing recently. There was a large difference in the affective attitudes toward mathematics among Korean students, depending on their achievement level, and in particular, the affective attitudes toward mathematics of students at the lower achievement level remained significantly low. Item-level analysis revealed a decrease in Korean students' awareness of the necessity of mathematics in daily life. Based on these results, we discussed the implications for cultivating Korean students' affective attitudes. It is hoped that the results of this study will be meaningfully used as basic data for examining the performance of mathematics education in Korea and contribute to developing measures to foster students' positive attitudes toward mathematics.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.49-65
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• 2006

This attitudes scale for prediction of mathematics achievement by elementary school students was developed from 50 initial items from the literature rated for content validity by 30 experts. The ratings rendered 31 revised items used for exploratory factor analysis and reliability tests. The 31 items were administered to 183 elementary students in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades, yielding 4 factors : enjoyment, confidence, value, and motivation with high inter-items consistency. To confirm appropriateness of the constructed model and to test its predictability in mathematics achievements, confirmative factor analysis and discriminant analysis were performed on 693 cases. Results showed that the attitude scale model of 4 factors can be recommended for use in the measurement of elementary school students' attitudes toward mathematics.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.115-129
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• 2009

The purpose of the study was to investigate the attitudes towards mathematics of high school students by comparing students of a general public school and a foreign language high school. The researchers were interested in how the two groups, middle or middle lower achievers and high achievers, showed their attitudes toward mathematics and where their attitudes were derived from. For the investigation, the researchers surveyed 121 students of general public high school and 64 students of a foreign language high school. Reliability, mean difference with t-test and frequency were analyzed. The results showed that many students from both groups had negative attitudes toward mathematics. However, the causes of the attitudes were different between the two groups. This implies that we need to reform the instructional methods and curricula of mathematics cources.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.249-262
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• 2010

Large Midwest university faculty members proposed the Science and Technology Enhancement Program Project (STEP) to improve students' learning in the secondary mathematics classroom using modules of inquiry-based teaching. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of the STEP Project on students' attitude toward mathematics. Hierarchical linear models (HLM) were used to evaluate the impact of the STEP Project. The sample group for the study was 130 ninth grade students enrolled in Integrated Algebra I in a large urban school district. The school was one of eight secondary schools that participated in the STEP Project. The classes in the treatment group were three of five classes ordered in terms of the highest, middle, and lowest mean GPA. The control group consisted of two other middle GPA classes. The classes had an average of 25 students. Teachers who previously had been involved in the STEP Project taught all treatment and control classes. The inquiry-based teaching activities provided by the project were confined to the treatment classes. The survey measuring students' attitudes toward mathematics were obtained for both groups of students. The inquiry-based teaching affected students' attitudes toward mathematics (p < 0.07, ES = 3.07). Especially, students who had preexisting low attitudes toward mathematics were significantly affected by treatment (p < 0.02, ES = 0.02), while the treatment positively affected African American students overall at p < 0.08 (ES = 0.58).

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.239-254
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• 2017

The study in this paper considers how high school students' attitudes toward and interest in mathematics could be promoted by conjoining the learning of ma thematics with the learning of social science topics. Survey instrument was dev eloped to measure student attitudes toward mathematics and social science subje cts and to evaluate student beliefs on learning mathematics embedded in social science topics. Data were collected from high school students in Korea by admi nistering pre- and post-tests: students were intervened with examples of math problems embedded in certain social contexts. The findings indicate that high sc hool students' experience of solving mathematics problems embedded in social c ontexts positively affects the promotion of their attitudes toward and beliefs on both mathematics and social science subjects.

• School Mathematics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.751-774
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• 2017

Having mathematics for everyone in terms of students' mathematics achievement and attitudes toward mathematics is challenging in high school in South Korea. To gain such purpose, teachers are supposed to have a considerable amount of knowledge and develop mathematical and pedagogical reasoning and insight because equity can be fulfilled in mathematics classroom when any student share their ideas and have mathematical discussions. As a part of a large project aimed to develop and enact professional development for equity and examine its effects and, finally, to propose the direction of professional development to help students cognitively and affectively balanced grow in mathematics, the current study briefly introduces how such professional development was designed and implemented. This study reports its effect based on the statistical analysis of students' responses for the three different surveys, which are parts of the National Assessment of Educational Achievement study, TIMSS Advanced, and the survey about classroom interaction. The data collected in all students in school whose three mathematics teachers had participated in the professional development for two years. The findings consistently indicate the strong and impressive growths in students' attitudes toward mathematics, which are statistically significant. Furthermore, their attitudes toward mathematics are also related to interactions in a mathematics classroom. Based on such results, this study claims expansion of professional development for equity.