Exploring the contributions of personal factors and environmental factors to mathematics learning achievements

Author(s):

Wen-Hui LuWen-Chi Lu

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

24. Mathematics Education Research

Format:

Poster

Session Information

24 SES 09, Int. Contexts in Mathematics Education

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-30

10:30-12:00

Room:

NIG, HS III

Chair:

Nadia Stoyanova Kennedy

Contribution

In Taiwan, the achievement gap between children of urban school and suburban schools became a critical issue, that children of suburban schools performed much poorer in the nationwide High School Basic Subject Exam. The issue was more critical in the subject area of mathematics. In the proposed study, the researchers wanted to identify the relationship among parents’ social economic background, children’s intellectual level, children’s feeling of self-efficacy in mathematics, teachers’ instructions, and children’s mathematics achievements, and try to explore how teachers’ instruction could have effects on the differences of mathematics achievement between children of urban school and suburban school. Researchers had found various factors related to children’s learning achievements, including children’s personal factors and environmental factors. Personal factors include personal cognitive abilities (Case, 1991; Mayer, 1987), achievement motivation (Bandura, 1977; 1994), learning or problem solving strategies (Geary, Bow-Thomas, & Yao, 1992﹔Hegarty, Mayer, & Monk, 1995﹔Jordan & Montani, 1997﹔Naglieri & Gottling, 1997)…etc.. Environmental factors refer to factors such as parent-child interaction (LeCroy & Krysik, 2008; Sameroff, Seifer, Baldwin, & Baldwin, 1993; Wang, Wildman & Calhoun, 1996), children’s family social economic background (Casey, Erkut, Ceder, & Young, 2008), and teachers’ instruction (Lu, Lin, & Lu, 2005; 2006). Based on the notion of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977; 1994), teachers' instruction might influence how children evaluation of their mathematics ability as well as the difficulties of the subject, which might have affect on children's awareness of self-efficacy in mathematics. The researchers of present study proposed that teachers might play important role on children’s awareness of self-efficacy in mathematics and their mathematics achievement even after controlling for the effects of parents' education level and children's intellectual level.

Method

A total of 106 sixth graders from two elementary schools in central Taiwan participated in this study. Sixty two of them were from an urban school and the other 44 were from a suburban school. Both of the schools were in the same city. Parents’ educational levels were served as indices of their family social economic statuses. The fifth grade level of Ko’s Elementary School Mathematics Achievement Test (Ko & Lin, 1993) was applied to exam children’s mathematics achievement. Results of Raven’s Progressive Matrices were used indices as children’s intellectual level because students at both schools took the test at either fourth or fifth grade. Children’s awareness of self-efficacy in mathematics was measure by a 17-item questionnaire designed by the researchers.

Expected Outcomes

The researchers have collected the data of mathematics achievement and Raven’s Progressive Matrices, and the questionnaires will be distributed in the end of February. Result of MANCOVA showed that school had significant effects on children’s mathematics achievements after controlling for parents’ educational level and children’s intelligence levels. In addition, in the suburban school, class differences exist while controlling for parents’ education level and children’s intellectual level. After participants finish the questionnaires, stepwise regression analysis will be applied to explore the contributions of school factors (as dummy variable), parents’ educational level, children’s intellectual level, and children’s awareness of self-efficacy in mathematics to children’s mathematics achievements. The possible reasons for school differences and class differences will be discussed.

References

Bandura, A.(1977).Self-efficacy: The exercise of Control. New York: W. H. Freeman. Bandura, A.(1994).Self-efficacy. In V. S. Ramachaudran (Ed.), Encyclopedia of human behavior (Vol. 4, pp.71-81). New York: Academic Press. Casey, B., Erkut, S., Ceder, I., & Young, J. M. (2008). Use of a storytelling contest to improve girls’ and boys’ geometry skills in kindergarten. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29, 29-48. Chu, D., Beru, Y., Watley, E., Wubu, S., Simon, E., Kessinger, R., Rivera, A., Schmidlein, P., & Wigfileld, A. (2008). Influences of math tracking on seventh-grade students’ self-beliefs and social comparisons. Journal of Educational Research, 102, 125-135. Geary, D. C., Bow-Thomas, C. C., & Yao, Y. (1992). Counting knowledge and skill in cognitive addition: a comparison of normal and mathematically disabled children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 54, 372-391. Hegarty, M., Mayer, R. E., & Monk, C. A. (1995). Comprehension of arithmetic word problems: a comparison of successful and unsuccessful problem solvers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 18-32. LeCroy, C. W. & Krysik, J. (2008). Predictors of academic achievement and school attachment among Hispanic adolescents. Children and Schools, 30, 197-209. Lu, Wen-Hui (2006/9/13-2006/9/16). The Effects of Self-Paced Dynamic Assessment on Solving Mathematics Word Problems. Eurpean Educational Research Association,European Conference for Educational Research. 瑞士, 日內瓦. Lu, Wen-Hui, Lin, Chu-Hung, Lu, Wen-Chi (2005/9/7-2005/9/10). The Long-term Effects of Using Dynamic Assessments as Remediation Models for Mathematics Low Achievers. The European Educational Research Association,The European Conference on Educational Research. Dublin, Ireland. Naglieri, J. A. & Gottling, S. H. (1997). Mathematics instruction and PASS cognitive processes: an intervention study. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 30, 513-520. Sameroff, A. J., Seifer, R., Baldwin, A., & Baldwin, C. (1993). Stability of intelligence from preschool to adolescence: the influence of social and family risk factors. Child Development, 64, 80-97. Wang, J., & Wildman, L., Calhoun, G. (1996). The relationship between parental influences and student achievement in seventh grade mathematics. School Science and Mathematics, 8, 359-399.

Author Information

Wen-Hui Lu

Providence University

Graduate Institute of Education

Shaloo

215

Wen-Chi Lu

Da-Cheng Elementary School

Update Modus of this Database

The current conference programme can be browsed in the conference management system (conftool) and, closer to the conference, in the conference app.
This database will be updated with the conference data after ECER.

Search the ECER Programme

Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
Search for authors and in the respective field.
For planning your conference attendance, please use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference and the conference agenda provided in conftool.
If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.