TY - JOUR
T1 - Post-primary students’ images of mathematics
T2 - findings from a survey of Irish ordinary level mathematics students
AU - Lane, Ciara
AU - Stynes, Martin
AU - O'Donoghue, John
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2016/10/2
Y1 - 2016/10/2
N2 - A questionnaire survey was carried out as part of a PhD research study to investigate the image of mathematics held by post-primary students in Ireland. The study focused on students in fifth year of post-primary education studying ordinary level mathematics for the Irish Leaving Certificate examination – the final examination for students in second-level or post-primary education. At the time this study was conducted, ordinary level mathematics students constituted approximately 72% of Leaving Certificate students. Students were aged between 15 and 18 years. A definition for ‘image of mathematics’ was adapted from Lim and Wilson, with image of mathematics hypothesized as comprising attitudes, beliefs, self-concept, motivation, emotions and past experiences of mathematics. A questionnaire was composed incorporating 84 fixed-response items chosen from eight pre-established scales by Aiken, Fennema and Sherman, Gourgey and Schoenfeld. This paper focuses on the findings from the questionnaire survey. Students’ images of mathematics are compared with regard to gender, type of post-primary school attended and prior mathematical achievement.
AB - A questionnaire survey was carried out as part of a PhD research study to investigate the image of mathematics held by post-primary students in Ireland. The study focused on students in fifth year of post-primary education studying ordinary level mathematics for the Irish Leaving Certificate examination – the final examination for students in second-level or post-primary education. At the time this study was conducted, ordinary level mathematics students constituted approximately 72% of Leaving Certificate students. Students were aged between 15 and 18 years. A definition for ‘image of mathematics’ was adapted from Lim and Wilson, with image of mathematics hypothesized as comprising attitudes, beliefs, self-concept, motivation, emotions and past experiences of mathematics. A questionnaire was composed incorporating 84 fixed-response items chosen from eight pre-established scales by Aiken, Fennema and Sherman, Gourgey and Schoenfeld. This paper focuses on the findings from the questionnaire survey. Students’ images of mathematics are compared with regard to gender, type of post-primary school attended and prior mathematical achievement.
KW - gender differences
KW - Image of mathematics
KW - post-primary students
KW - prior achievement
KW - school differences
KW - second-level education
KW - survey
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84966711857&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/0020739X.2016.1170899
DO - 10.1080/0020739X.2016.1170899
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84966711857
SN - 0020-739X
VL - 47
SP - 1009
EP - 1027
JO - International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology
JF - International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology
IS - 7
ER -