STUDENT ATTITUDES TO THE TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS IN THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA

Abstract

The education system in the Republic of Srpska is mainly focused on the implementation of the curriculum and the adoption of content standardized by the program. Therefore, it is very often criticized and opposed because its orientation does not touch the living context of students and the expectations of an informal environment. This is especially true in the field of mathematical primary education since the mathematics that is taught in school is not the one that students are interested in, which requires reflection and applications in a real-life context, as it is taught in an abstract and highly formalized level, which requires logical reasoning. Hence, there is the antipathy and a high level of dissatisfaction and insecurity, especially during task solving which are the aim and the means of learning in math. There is an unsatisfactory situation in the teaching of mathematics characterized by a multitude of negative evaluations and a large number of students who ask for private lessons. This points us to re-examine all the parameters which have an impact on the results of mathematical education in primary schools, especially those that emphasize pupils who, according to the understanding of developmental psychology are in the center of the education system. To start with, it is urgent to point out the things which they are dissatisfied with in the teaching of mathematics and in a perspective that will adversely affect the development of mathematical literacy and mathematical competencies and then to their opinion, the teaching of mathematics in primary school could become more attractive and therefore more efficient. Accordingly, the empirical part of the work is organized in order to examine students' attitudes about the state of primary mathematics teaching and the factors that can contribute to better and more efficient teaching. By using the scaling technique on a sample of 157 students from the 8th and 9th grades of primary schools in Bijeljina, we came to the results that indicate almost unanimous dissatisfaction of students with the teaching mathematics, first of all, with outdated mode. The study contributed to the opening of the most important problems in primary mathematics teaching, and indicated the paths to which the theory and practice of teaching methodology of mathematics education in primary education and education itself should be developed.