Dimensions of students’ views of themselves as learners of mathematics

Abstract

Students’ views of themselves as learners of mathematics are a decisive parameter for their engagement and success in school. We are interested in students’ experiences with mathematics encompassing cognitive, emotional and motivational aspects. In particular, we focus on capturing the structural properties of affect related to mathematics. Participants in our study were 1,436 randomized chosen students of secondary schools from overall Finland. In the Finnish upper secondary school, there are two different syllabi for mathematics: the general and the advanced one. Schools were invited to organize the survey by one of their year 2 general syllabus courses and one of their year 2 advanced syllabus courses in grade 11. By means of factor analysis, we obtained seven dimensions in which students’ hold beliefs and emotions about mathematics partly intertwined with their motivational orientations. These dimensions are described by reliable scales, which allow outlining an average image of Finnish students’ views of themselves as learners of mathematics. Moreover, we analyzed relations between the seven dimensions and what kind of structure they generate. Thereby, a core of three high correlating dimensions could be identified, yielding different accentuations with regard to course choice.