Abstract
ABSTRACT In this paper, we approach modelling mathematics dispositions from a different methodological perspective in order to shed more light into the complex interplay between teaching practices and students’ learning outcomes. We draw on survey data from around 5000 students from Year 7–11 (age 11–16) from 40 Secondary schools in England. Our methodological approach includes Rasch modelling to produce measures of attitudinal outcomes as well as students’ perceptions of pedagogic practices. We then employ fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA) to explore the relationships between students’ characteristics and the perceived type of teaching they receive in mathematics. We use two measures of ‘transmissionist teaching’ which aim to quantify the degree to which teaching practices are perceived as ‘teacher-centred’. One measure gives the students’ perceptions and the other gives the teacher’s perspective. We find that different configurations of student and teacher perceptions of transmissionist teaching are associated with high and low mathematical dispositions for different year groups and for boys and girls. We discuss the methodological merits of this approach along with the substantive educational implications of these findings.
Highlights
Mathematics as a topic in the school curriculum is considered important, if not vital, for students’ potential access to further study in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects, and many fields in the Social Sciences (e.g. Business, Economics, etc) in Higher education, and to their educational and socioeconomic life opportunities
In previous work we have shown how some institutional and pedagogic practices can encourage the reduction of the learning of mathematics to the procedural level only, limiting future educational opportunities
Both these instances would have consistency scores of 1 but Y is being explained better by X in the right-hand diagram where the coverage score is higher and more of the set X is ‘covered’ by Y. As already mentioned this analysis is focused on data from a complete case analysis of 5022 students in Years 7–11, with mathematics dispositions as the main outcome
Summary
Mathematics as a topic in the school curriculum is considered important, if not vital, for students’ potential access to further study in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects, and many fields in the Social Sciences (e.g. Business, Economics, etc) in Higher education, and to their educational and socioeconomic life opportunities. Relevant studies and resulting research findings have focused on one or more from many ‘dimensions’, including beliefs, values, identities, engagement, affect, emotions, motivation, confidence, self-efficacy, and dispositions (Di Martino and Zan 2011; Hannula 2002; Ruffell, Mason, and Allen 1998). This complexity, as well as the lack of agreement on the definition of the construct has led researchers This was the ultimate aim of the project we draw from here
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