Students’ Perceptions of Characteristics of Desired Mathematics Lessons

Abstract

In addition to seeking students’ opinions about the types of tasks they like and can learn from, we also sought their opinions on the types of mathematics lessons they prefer. It was hoped to gain insights into the ways students described their desired characteristics of lessons, rather than through their ratings of lesson characteristics prepared by us. We did this through: open-ended responses to particular prompts on the overall survey (described in the previous chapter); and free format essays by students in two of our project schools. We based this approach on Zan and di Martino (Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education 13(1):27–48, 2010) who argued that researchers should move from measuring attitudes to describing them. They argued for more narrative approaches to describing student attitudes, including with large samples, with the goal of understanding behaviour. This chapter seeks to elaborate factors influencing student behaviours. Three key recommendations relate to the forms of student grouping, the explicitness of teachers’ intentions, and the ways that teachers interact with students.