Browsing by Author "Vainio, Milla"

Aims. In this study research topics were primary school pupils' attitudes towards mathematics and teachers' methodological ways to affect those attitudes. This study has been inspired by both national and international research results which show that attitudes get worse even when skills get better. This study concerns different kinds of methodological ways to affect pupils' attitudes and how well those methods function. Moreover, the study describes what kinds of tasks those methodological ways have from the viewpoint of attitude. Methods. Four working primary school class teachers were interviewed for this study. Interviews were theme interviews and they were made in spring 2015. The interviews were analysed following the principles of theory bounded content analysis: first analysis units were formed and then they were categorized into larger units. Results and conclusions. When categorizing the results, different kinds of methodological groups were found that have a different kind of effect on attitudes. The methodological groups are: inspiring and attracting methods, interaction based methods, self-efficacy improving methods, sufficient challenge providing methods, methods that support development of understanding and methods that support finding one's own way of learning. Considering weak pupils, especially self-efficacy improving methods are essential because weak self-efficacy affects task management and learning experiences. Sufficient challenge producing methods, on the other hand, are vital for talented pupils' attitudes. All found method groups found in this study can help teachers' when planning versatile teaching that is beneficial to attitudes. Teachers evaluated functionality of the methods which can be helpful when trying to find a functional method.