Browsing by Author "Fleming, Johanna"

The objectives: The objectives of this research have been to increase the research data available on the maths learning of the Swedish language immersion pupils and to see if sex/gender, language in instruction and one's idea of oneself as a maths learner affect learning results of language immersion pupils. The research questions were: How did the language immersion pupils do in the maths test in comparison to the pupils studying in Finnish? Did the language immersion girls and boys' results differ in KTLT and the technical reading test, Tarzan? What was the connection like between the a pupils' performance in KTLT and Tarzan? Which group had a stronger correlation between Tarzan and KTLT? The pupils studying in Swedish or in Finnish? How did the language immersion pupils see themselves as maths learners? Did this experience have any connection with the way the pupils performed in the maths when comparing girls and boys' to each other? Which categories did the interview data produce and did the theory resemble any of them? There has been reasonably little research so far on the maths skills of language immersion pupils, but far more on the learning results of pupils studying in high school and especially on the differences between girls' and boys' results during the last ten years. Thus there is a lot of research data one could compare the results of this research. The methods: This research took place in a junior high school in Kirkkonummi and students from four classes on the grades 8 and 9 were tested. On each grade there was one language immersion class and one Finnish speaking class. Together 67 pupils were tested out of whom 25 were from the language immersion classes. All the pupils were tested with KTLT and Tarzan after which an interview was carried out with the 25 language immersion pupils. The data was analysed with statistical research methods and category analysis. The results and conclusions: This research didn't show statistically significant difference on the maths and language skills between pupils studying in the language immersion programme and the Finnish control group. A pupils' sex/gender didn't have a statistical significance on the results though the boys studying in the language immersion programme received better results on KTLT than the girls. The girls studying in the language immersion programme, however, received better grades on maths. The lower results on the testing could be partly explained by the more negative experience of oneself as a math learner by girls. Also earlier research literature have showed a connection between performing in tests and one's experience as a learner. Why girls' grades a better than boys despite this lower performing status, the research data doesn't explain. However, that could be a topic for a further study.