5th and 8th grade pupils’ and teachers’ perceptions of the relationships between teaching methods, classroom ethos, and positive affective attitudes towards learning mathematics in Japan



The lack of research about pupils’ attitudes is in part due to the influence of
behaviourism on educational psychology, which has stressed the relationships between
stimulus and response, that is, teaching methods and pupil achievement. It is also in part
due to the difficulty and complexity of investigating pupils’ attitudes compared to
cognition (Gardner, 1985; McLeod, 1992). For instance, the ATI research mentioned
earlier did not develop extensively because of the complexity of individual differences
and the ambiguity of the effects of strategy and situation on intelligence, personality and
behaviours (Hallam, 1999). Thus, despite the importance of examining pupils’ affective
attitudes towards mathematics learning in terms of cognitive outcomes and social
expectancies of schooling, the field is relatively under developed.

1.3: What are the specific problems OfJapanese students?

The specific problems of Japanese students identified in their affective responses to
mathematics, which were revealed in international surveys such as SIMS and TIMSS,
were:

• negative attitudes towards mathematics,

• lack of motivation to learn mathematics,

• feelings of anxiety or difficulties in learning mathematics, and

• lack of confidence in their performance.

There is much evidence reporting Japanese pupils’ negative affective attitudes towards
mathematics learning. The results of TIMSS showed that neither 4th nor 8th graders
expressed positive attitudes towards mathematics, either in terms of liking mathematics
or enjoying learning the subject. Their attitudes worsened as they proceeded through the
grades (National Institute for Educational Research, 1997, 1998). The results of SIMS
showed that 7th graders believed that doing well in mathematics was relatively important
to them, but overall did not appear to like learning mathematics. Overall, junior high
school students’ attitudes towards mathematics worsened over time, in comparison to
the results of FIMS in 1964 (Husen, 1967).

Some possible reasons for the deterioration of older pupils’ affective attitudes towards
mathematics learning have been suggested. Firstly, older pupils become increasingly
unsure about the effect of effort on their mathematics outcomes. Fuji (1992) reported



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