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

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Generally teachers appeared to deploy teaching methods, which they perceived, were
beneficial to promote pupils’ sense of security and sense of progress. Other teaching
methods, which were perceived as not beneficial in promoting pupils’ sense of security
and sense of progress but as promoting enjoyment and motivation, were less frequently
deployed at both grade levels.

Analysis of teachers’ responses suggested that most of the teaching methods were not
believed by teachers to promote pupils’ four affective aspects together. There was a
tendency for them to perceive that enjoyment and motivation were in one category while
sense of security and sense of progress were in another. In contrast, pupils tended to
perceive that all of the teaching methods promoted pupils’ four affective aspects
together.

Pupils’ perceptions of the frequency of the deployment of teaching methods and the
extent to which their affective attitudes were promoted by these teaching methods were
lower than their teachers. There were also relatively large individual differences. Pupils
as a whole seem to have rather different perceptions of the extent of deployment of
Teacher explanation and individualised work, requiring individual cognitive activities,
even though teachers seem to intend to deploy these teaching methods to a similar
extent. There was a wide distribution in pupils’ perceived frequency of individual help at
both grades. This may indicate that teachers give pupils individual help to different
extents.

The frequency of deployment of Reading a textbook and discussion-style teaching
methods seemed to affect teachers’ and pupils’ perceptions of the extent to which these
teaching methods promoted pupils’ affective attitudes towards mathematics learning.
This also applied to the deployment of Individual work for 5^th graders. For these
methods, more frequent perceived deployment led to more positive perceptions of the
effects on attitudes.

To conclude, there seem to be substantive differences in the perceptions of pupils and
teachers at and between grades in the extent to which different teaching methods are
seen to be deployed and their perceived impact on affective attitudes towards learning
mathematics.

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