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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CHAPTER 6: TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHING
METHODS ADOPTED IN MATHEMATICS CLASSES

This chapter presents the results of the analysis of the qualitative interview data. 20
teachers of 5^th graders and 12 teachers of 8^th graders took part in the interview phase.
All data obtained in the interviews were transcribed and translated from Japanese to
English. Responses were categorised. Comparisons were made between teachers of 5^th
graders and teachers of 8^th graders.

6.1: Teachers’ perceptions of pupils’ affective attitudes towards mathematics
learning

This section considers two main sub-questions. One is whether teachers believed that
the promotion of pupils’ enjoyment, motivation, sense of security and sense of progress
were important in their mathematics classes, and if so why they thought in this way. The
second is the way that teachers assessed pupils’ enjoyment, motivation and sense of
security in learning mathematics. For pupils’ sense of progress, teachers were asked to
express their ideas on when they felt that their pupils made progress in their
mathematics learning, and when they believed that pupils themselves had a sense of
progress in mathematics learning.

Pupils’ enjoyment in mathematics learning

Although seventeen out of twenty 5^th grade teachers (85%) and ten out of twelve (83%)
8^th grade teachers expressed their agreement that promoting pupils’ enjoyment was
important, some teachers expressed neutral or less positive beliefs. Two main reasons
emerged regarding the importance of promoting enjoyment. First, teachers pointed out
that promoting pupils’ enjoyment in mathematics learning could prevent pupils from
becoming disaffected. One 5^th grade teacher was aiming to provide enjoyable
mathematics learning, in order to reduce pupil disaffection towards mathematics learning
(ap.6.1.1.5^th). The other reason for promoting pupils’ enjoyment in mathematics learning
was to improve motivation. For instance, a 5^th grade teacher commented that the
provision of enjoyable mathematics lessons would be the starting point in promoting
pupils’ motivation. Boring lessons could reduce pupils’ motivation (ap.6.1.2.5^th ). An 8^th
grade teacher working at a girls’ junior high school hoped that female students would

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