Serbian Students’ Attitudes towards Mathematics and the Visuality & Mathematics Tempus Project (2012-2014)

Author(s):

Kristóf Fenyvesi(presenting / submitting)Zsolt Lavicza(presenting)Raine Koskimaa Suncica Zdravkovic Djurdjica Takaci

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

24. Mathematics Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

24 SES 11, Students' Attitudes

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-10

17:15-18:45

Room:

430.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Joana Mata-Pereira

Contribution

The Visuality & Mathematics — Experiential Education of Mathematics Through the Use of Visual Art, Science, and Playful Activities (2012–2014) Tempus Project was initiated by the cooperation of eight European universities and scientific institutions. With an interdisciplinary team of mathematicians, artists, researchers of education, teachers from the secondary and third level education and university students, our goal was to bring about a reawakening of the connections between mathematics and the visual arts in the Serbian mathematics education curricula with interactive, experience-centred, culture- and arts-related content and to develop the conditions of Serbian mathematics education with technological equipment.

During 2013–2014, our Tempus project team conducted comprehensive attitude surveys for Serbian students, a wide range group, and their attitudes towards mathematics as such and towards the education of mathematics were measured. Based on the survey results, in the form of our newly established European Summer School for Visual Mathematics and Education 2013 and 2014 we offered special training for Serbian teachers in experience centered education of mathematics and asked them to utilize our methods in their schools. In 2013 and 2014 a Tempus Survey for Teachers (TST 2013 and 2014), a short survey was conducted, investigating the success of the summer schools among the teachers who participated. All the results were used to make specific recommendations for the future development of mathematical curricula in Serbian education of mathematics at all levels.

Our Tempus Attitude Survey for Serbian Students 2013 (TAS 2013) was one of the largest studies on students' attitudes toward mathematics ever carried out in Serbia: 2,598 Serbian students participated in the survey, spanning in age from 11 to 18 years. We intended to study what specific aspects of Serbian students’ mathematics learning experiences are perceived in a positive light and which cause problems. TAS 2013 mapped the complex relationship between students’ mathematics anxiety, mathematics achievement in Serbia, and the Serbian students’ perception of the teaching methods applied in mathematics education by their teachers, especially the presence of experience based approaches and artistic and cultural connections of mathematics in Serbian mathematics education.

In our presentation we introduce TAS 2013, and TST 2013 and 2014 results and also make a comparison between TAS 2013 results with PISA 2012 and TIMSS 2011 results related to the Serbian education.

Method

The TAS 2013 sample came from 5 elementary and 15 high schools in Serbia, with children spanning in age from 11 to 18 years. They came from those schools where teachers participating in our Tempus project work and also visited Tempus Summer Schools. The questionnaire used in the survey was made by the Tempus project team, which was led by a psychologist and a researcher of mathematics education. They proposed the initial set of indicators that should be investigated in order to meet the major goals of the survey. The initial list of indicators included wide areas such as: ● everyday approach to mathematics: usage, usefulness; ● general ideas about mathematics; ● general ideas about the education of mathematics; ● students own experience with mathematics; ● students own experience with mathematical education. The final version of the questionnaire consisted of 5 general demographic questions, 7 specific demographic questions, and 41 survey questions. In Tempus Survey for Teachers (TST) 40-40 Serbian mathematics teachers participated in 2013 and 2014. Our questionnaire focused on teachers' reactions on interactive, experience-centred, culture- and arts-related contents in mathematics education. In the analysis of the surveys we used several statistical methods and compared our results with PISA 2012 and TIMSS 2011.

Expected Outcomes

2,598 students participated in the TAS 2013. The gender distribution of participants was close to equal, the urban population of students from Serbia was slightly overrepresented, but we were able to reach students mostly from the participating cities. While the project was mainly aimed to reach high school students middle school students also participated in the survey. While the majority of students (84%) were attending high school, 16% came from middle schools. In the attitude survey we also asked students to inform us about the teaching methods their teachers utilize in their classrooms. According to our results, most Serbian mathematics teachers do not apply methodologies, tools, and equipment for experience-centered mathematics education, which could be effectively implemented to support their students’ creative and imaginative abilities in the comprehension of complex and difficult mathematical problems and would make mathematics classes more engaging. A third of the students rarely used computers in mathematics classes, and more than half of them never used a computer in their mathematics class. This demonstrates that not only do students not rely on the support of computer applications in math classes, the teachers also use them only very rarely for the illustration of teaching content (e.g., in the form of PowerPoint presentations). The situation is not significantly better in the case of using hands-on tools, physical models, and other visualization equipment: almost half of the students have never had an opportunity to work with these kinds of physical materials in their math classes, or they cannot recall these occasions. The situation is rather unfavorable too in connection to the school presentation of the cultural embeddedness of mathematics. The general mathematics education practice in Serbia almost entirely excludes all accounts of art connections to mathematics.

References

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Author Information

Kristóf Fenyvesi (presenting / submitting)

University of Jyväskylä

Department of Art and Culture Studies

Jyväskylä

Zsolt Lavicza (presenting)

University of Cambridge, UK

Raine Koskimaa

University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Suncica Zdravkovic

University of Novi Sad, Serbia

Djurdjica Takaci