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

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I really wish to express my utmost thanks to the children contributing their
voices to this research. Several thousands of pupils took part in either the pilot or the
main study. The time for completion of the questionnaire was 45 minutes, one class
duration on average, so I owed enormous amount of precious hours from pupils in total. I
really wish that my study may be beneficial to the children so that they can enjoy
mathematics learning more, want to try hard to learn more mathematics, feel more
secure in mathematics learning, and feel more progress in mathematics learning. My
gratitude goes to more than a hundred teachers who took part in either the pilot or the
main study. I especially appreciate 31 teachers who kindly spared the time for my
interviews although they were so busy at the end of the middle term in December 1999. I
really wish that my study may help teachers to counter the implications of their teaching
practices in mathematics classes. I hope that my study will be beneficial for the
gorvenmentaɪ Staffwho are in positions to support the teachers.

I would like to express my utmost gratitude to and respect for my supervisor, Dr. Susan
Hallam. She has supported me since I started to learn psychology at the Institute as a
diploma student in October 1996. I have learned a lot about psychology with her and
enjoyed it for these five years. I also learned much from her that providing accurately
informative supervision and valuing students’ autonomy in learning motivate students to
learn, although this must have required her great generosity and patience. Support from
all the staff of the Psychology and Special Needs Department and all the staff of the
Institute of Education also encouraged me greatly. I would also like to express my
thanks to all my friends who increased my happiness and shared the difficulties with me
at the Institute. I could not complete my study without all of the precious support from
these people. I am really grateful to have been a student at the Institute of Education. I
wish to express my thanks to my parents, Yoshio and Takae Saeki, for their
understanding of my dream of studying educational psychology in London and their firm
trust that my study would be completed.

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