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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• to what extent they agreed that competition between pupils could be used for
improving pupils’ motivation to Ieam mathematics.

Teachers of both age groups reported ‘sometimes’ attempting to improve satisfaction
and cohesiveness and reduce difficulties in mathematics classes. Teachers of both age
groups hardly ever noted friction in mathematics classes and tended to slightly disagree
that competition could be used for the promotion of pupils’ motivation to Ieam
mathematics. No statistically significant differences were found in the teachers’ attempts
to improve classroom ethos between teachers from the different age groups (Figure
7.3.2 and Table 7.3.4).

Figure 7.3.2: Mean scores of teachers’ perceptions of classroom ethos and their
attempts to improve classroom ethos (age group comparison)

□ 8th grade
teachers

□ 5th grade
teachers

I=Improving satisfaction, 2=lmproving cohesiveness, 3=Reducing difficulty
4=Notion Offriction, 5=Using competition for promotion of motivation

Table 7.3.4: Mean scores and Standard Deviation of teachers’ perceptions of classroom

ethos and their attempts to improve classroom ethos

The extent to which teachers’ reported attempts to improve their pupils’ satisfaction was
positively correlated with the extent of their reported attempts to reduce their pupils’

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