Attitude and Conceptual Knowledge of Senior Secondary School Students towards Mathematics: A Study of Livingstone District

This research investigated attitudes and conceptual knowledge of students towards mathematics and perceptions teachers have about their students towards mathematics in the five schools in Livingstone district. It was not clear how student teachers perceived mathematics and their attitude towards it and what kind of cognitive-metacognitive skills and strategies they possess as they graduate from the colleges. This research employed a combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods. The study sample comprised 265 student teachers of mathematics from two colleges of education. Research instruments used in this study were: The 52-item Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) questionnaire was developed by Schraw and Dennison (1994) and the Questionnaire in the Teaching of Mathematics (QTM)†) was developed by Paul Ernest (1996), and the semi-structured interview schedules were used in the focus group discussions. The MAI questionnaire had two factors; knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition. The questionnaire for the students’ perceptions and attitudes towards mathematics included statements about how they regard or perceive mathematics in their learning processes. The questionnaire also included attitude statements on the way student teachers felt when learning mathematics and how they react when asked to answer questions or solve problems in class. The statistical analysis applied predominantly in the data analysis to investigate and explore differences between groups of independent variables was analysis of variance (ANOVA). ANOVA allows one to compare the effects of each independent variable individually (Ho, 2006, p.57), which is beneficial in the context of study. To validate the findings produced from ANOVA test, the effect size measure Eta-squared (Levein & Hullet, 2002) were reported. The key findings indicated that student teachers had moderately high metacognitive awareness levels in both colleges. According to the results of the analysis, there was not a significant difference among the scores of metacognitive awareness of student teachers (F=0.522; Ï =0.491>0.05) according to means. We accept the null hypothesis that the means in the two colleges of education do not vary since Ï >0.05. Results indicated that student teachers in both colleges of education had higher levels of their perceptions and attitudes towards mathematics. Further, results from the Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) indicated that student teachers perception of their performance is attributed to lecturers’ methods of teaching and lecturers’ attitudes towards them. Results from the focus group with all the years of study indicated that lecturers teach them procedures of solving problem without student teachers’ participation. Hannula (2011), supports the idea that teachers’ positive attitudes and good personal qualities bolster students’ academic performance. In general the study concludes that student teachers in colleges of education have moderately high levels of metacognitive awareness and positive perceptions and attitudes towards mathematics. Therefore, this study recommends that teacher training programmes should include activities through the development and support of metacognitive awareness and affective factors that will be helpful in terms.