Abstract
In order to ascertain the real-life situations that teachers, as stakeholders, would find suitable and appropriate to deal with in Mathematical Literacy (a compulsory subject for students who are not doing Mathematics at the Further Education and Training level of the South African education system), we embarked on a study known as the Relevance of School Mathematics Education (ROSME). The principle underpinning this article is that there are times when it is necessary to assess the functionality and quality of questionnaires used to ascertain affective domain issues. The study provides an analysis technique which is not affected by the sample of individuals completing a questionnaire, provided that the instrument meets particular requirements. It thus improves the rigour of measurement. Various statistics obtained in this study showed that the instrument used to determine the real-life situations which teachers prefer for Mathematical Literacy reasonably identifies this variable. However, it is cautioned that much more care needs to be exercised in construction of such instruments. The results also indicated the real-life situations which teachers most and least preferred to be included in Mathematical Literacy, providing useful information for policy-makers and textbook authors on contextual situations to be included in learning materials.
Highlights
It is widely recognised that affective domain issues such as beliefs, attitudes, interest, motivation and perceptions are important determinants for effective teaching and learning
Despite criticisms offered against questionnaires, Pring (2005, p. 39) argues for the value of survey research, as it pertains to the interpretation of questionnaire items, stating that ‘The meanings which the respondents attribute to the questions are not something private and subjective, but the meanings which anyone conversant with the language would attribute to them’
A burning question regarding these contexts is who decides on the contexts to be used in Mathematical Literacy? It is obvious that there are a number of important stakeholders in education that should decide on the real-life situations that should be used in Mathematical Literacy
Summary
It is widely recognised that affective domain issues such as beliefs, attitudes, interest, motivation and perceptions are important determinants for effective teaching and learning Other means, such as interviews and observations, are used to ascertain affective domain issues in educational research, the dominant research approach is the use of surveys with Likert scaletype questionnaires. One of the major reasons for this is that in order to make meaningful, confident and believable recommendations for policies and practices in education, a crucial requirement is that the measurement instrument employed be beyond suspicion with regard to its functioning or, as expressed in legal parlance, ‘it should be beyond reasonable doubt’ This is especially important given the current scepticism of the value of educational research rendering low returns by not providing convincing guidance on issues of importance to governments, policy-makers and those involved in professional practices in education (Pring, 2005). This article reports in-depth on the functioning of a survey instrument designed to ascertain the hierarchical order that Science and Mathematics teachers assign to real-life situations to be used in school mathematics
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