Attitudes towards mathematics

A research study done by Robert Wakhata and colleagues, of the African Centre of Excellence for Innovative Teaching and Learning Mathematics and Science (ACEITLMS), University of Rwanda, has provided insight into students’ positive attitude towards mathematics which leads to better performance and may influence their overall achievement and application of mathematics in real-life.

The findings of the study concern an investigation into students’ attitudes towards linear programming (LP) mathematics word problems (LPMWPs), in which a sample of 851 grade 11 Ugandan students (359 male and 492 female) from eight secondary schools (public and private) participated.

Cluster random sampling was applied to select respondents from eight schools: four from central Uganda and four from eastern Uganda. The attitude towards mathematics inventory-short form (ATMI-SF) was adapted (with α = 0.75) as a multidimensional measurement tool for measuring students’ attitudes towards LPMWPs. The results revealed that students’ attitude towards LPMWPs was generally negative.

Enjoyment, motivation, and confidence were weekly negatively correlated while usefulness was positively correlated. The results found no significant statistical relationship between students’ attitudes towards LPMWPs and their age, gender, school location, school status, or school ownership.

The study provided insight to different educational stakeholders in assessing students’ attitudes towards LPMWPs. The researcher thinks their work may provide remediation and interventional strategies to create students’ conceptual change.

The study when fully scrutinised led to a conclusion that commends that teachers should cultivate students’ interests in mathematics as early as possible. Varying classroom instructional practices could be a remedy to enhance students’ understanding, achievement, and, motivation in learning mathematics word problems.

The teachers’ it avers, should encourage continuous professional development courses to improve instruction, assessment, and students’ attitudes. Overall, the study found that support for such a theoretical framework could enhance the learning of mathematics word problems in general and LP in particular.

Teachers recognised that hard work and application of prior conceptual knowledge and understanding may favourably help students to develop a positive attitude and perform better. Though, generally, students seemed not to have adequately developed the knowledge of logical thinking and reasoning of basic and prior LP concepts to aid in learning LP.

Many studies have been published on students’ attitudes towards mathematics, which have translated as liking and disliking the subject. To some secondary school students, mathematics appears to be abstract and difficult to comprehend, some simply find it boring and irrelevant to everyday life experiences.

Rather than investigating students’ general attitudes toward mathematics, this recent research also attempted to identify background factors that could provide a basis for understanding students’ attitudes towards mathematics. Thus the attitude to mathematics of students at different academic levels might be due to fundamentally different reasons.

In Uganda, studies on predictors of students’ attitudes towards science and mathematics are scant. The specific aim of learning mathematics in Ugandan secondary schools is to enable students to apply acquired skills and knowledge in solving community problems and to instil a positive attitude towards productive work.

More at: https://go.nature.com/3DgFWTA