Browsing by Subject "matematiikan vaikeus"

This study presents the comparative insight on: what are teachers' perceptions of mathematical difficulty and how do they recognize it and support their students. This thesis is a comparative study on one of the developed countries, Finland, versus one of the under-developed countries, Nepal, in the world. As different culture may have different ways to handle mathematical difficulty, the purpose of this study is to determine different methods to recognize mathematical difficulty and to support students other than Finnish teachers' methods. This study is a qualitative in nature and based on one to one interviews. Four Finnish class teachers and four Nepalese class teachers were interviewed. Seven of the teachers are currently teaching in the first six grades of the comprehensive school and one of the interviewed teachers teaches 8th grade. All of the finnish teachers have graduated as a master of behavioural science and have completed the teacher education. Three of the Nepalese teachers were licensed teachers. However, one of the teachers does not hold any degree on teacher education. The interviews were conducted in the beginning of 2017. As a data analysis, content analysis was conducted and the results were themed into main themes and upper- and lower themes. The findings suggest that Finnish teachers had more methods to identify students' mathematical difficulty than those of Nepalese teachers. Finnish teachers observe their students and their calculating methods; meanwhile nepalese teachers use test results as their main method to identify students' difficulty. As supporting methods Finnish teachers use for example, remedial instruction, concrete tools and placing students in to table groups in a way that every group has also weak and strong students. Nepalese teachers also use above-mentioned students placing into table groups. In addition, nepalese teachers tried to link the mathematical exercises into real life scenarios. Most of the interviewed teachers don't think that the teacher education they have got helped them either to recognize mathematical difficulty or to support the students who experience difficulty. Teachers say that working experience and talking with colleagues have helped them the most.