Student teachers attitude towards mathematics and its relation with achievement

Abstract

Student teachers, as well as in-service teachers, tend to have a negative attitude towards mathematics (Maloney & Beilock, 2012; Geist, 2015; Jackson & Leffingwell, 1999; Novak & Tassell, 2017). Some have argued that these negative feelings are related to their own experience as mathematics learners in school. In this study we ask how student teachers’ attitude towards mathematics evolve through their experience as students in mathematics classrooms from an early age, and how that experience has shaped their attitude and how they see their mathematical abilities.

Students’ attitude towards mathematics has been widely studied in mathematics education even though little consensus has been among researchers regarding the definition of the attitude construct. In early research the definition of attitude was often guided by the instrument used to measure it (Daskalogianni & Simpson, 2000; Fennema & Sherman, 1976; Haladyna et al., 1983; Hart, 1989), usually statements on a questionnaire where participants indicated on a Likert scale to what degree they either agreed or disagreed. In the past decades, there has been increased emphasis on the theoretical construct of attitude and research has shifted towards interpretative narrative approaches to assess students’ attitude towards mathematics (Di Martino & Zan, 2010). The main advantage of using a narrative approach is that the respondents can freely bring out what they consider most important in their experience, giving a clearer picture of how their attitude towards mathematics has evolved. In this study, we use a tripartite model for attitude, (1) emotional disposition, (2) mindset and, (3) view of mathematics. Emotional disposition refers to whether mathematics is viewed positively or negatively. Mindset refers to the idea that mathematical ability is either fixed, meaning that people are either mathematically talented or not, or that ability is mostly the result of effort and that people can improve their mathematical abilities. Lastly, the view of mathematics refers to whether mathematics is seen as instrumental/procedural, as a set of rules and procedures to be followed without reason, or whether mathematics is seen as relational where the rules have meaning, and it is understood how and why the rules and procedures work. These three components that constitute attitude towards mathematics are interconnected and fundamental in the development of a relationship with mathematics.

As part of a university course in mathematics and mathematics teaching, second-year student teachers wrote a short autobiographical essay (N=76) on their memories as mathematics learners and on their feelings toward mathematics, focusing on their best and worst memories connected with mathematics. They were also asked to draw a sketch describing their feelings toward the subject over time.

The data were analyzed using the principles of qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz, 2014; Mayring, 2015). The coding was guided by a theoretical framework and research questions, which provided the themes of interest. Qualitative interpretative coding was performed to create categories under the themes. The frequencies of occurrences of these categories were then counted and their frequencies compared. Finally, a contingency analysis drew out connections between categories and between themes, based on whether certain categories occur frequently together, in the same autobiography.

Six categories emerged from the description of students’ experience as mathematics learners: (1) the bad chapter, (2) keeps getting worse, (3) getting better, (4) never a positive moment, (5) always positive, and (6) the good chapter. Only a few autobiographical essays can be characterized as having a genuinely positive disposition towards mathematics and the majority of the narratives described math as hard, boring, or stressful. In general, the findings indicate that a majority of the student teachers have a negative disposition towards mathematics and a rather fixed mindset as mathematics learners, along with an instrumental understanding of mathematics.