Browsing by Subject "mathematics education"

Research shows that motivation is an important part of mathematics learning. Without motivation to learn math, learning outcomes would be significantly worse. The purpose of the study is to find out what the motivation factors are during the mathematics lessons for grades five and six. Since previous studies also show that the teacher has a central role in creating and maintaining the motivation for mathematics, the teacher's significance for the motivation is also examined in this study. In the survey, 28 pupils from grade five and 24 pupils from grade six participated. In total, 52 pupils from three different schools in Itä-uusimaa participated. The material was collected during the spring of 2019. The survey is mainly quantitative where the material was collected through a questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of two open questions, which were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. According to the results, the students were motivated during the mathematics lessons, they perceived mathematics as important and useful. The biggest motivating factor was the teacher's activity, where the students mentioned that a good mathematics teacher is kind, happy and helpful and has good subject and educational skills. A student with high internal goal orientation experiences the mathematics lessons as meaningful. High internal goal orientation was also associated with high values of one's own mathematical skills. The differences between the sexes and the grades were small.