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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Correlations revealed that pupils of both age groups and 8^th grade teachers perceive that
teachers adopt praise in an integrated way. 5^th grade teachers perceived that they give
each kind of praise separately. Pupils who appreciated receiving praise, overall, felt
happy with praise of any kind, while 5^th graders reported being happy with their teacher’s
praise based on results only when they perceived that their teachers regularly adopted
this kind of praise.

Pupils of both grades perceived more frequent deployment of most teaching methods,
as they perceived more frequent receipt of praise and felt happy with that praise,
although there were some exceptions. Pupils’ perceived frequency of deployment of
Reading a textbook and Individual work at both grades and 5^th graders’ perceived
frequency of deployment of Teacher explanation was not statistically significantly
different according to perceived frequency of teachers’ praise, irrespective of the kind of
praise.

The effects of pupils’ feeling happy with teacher praise on pupils’ perceived frequency of
deployment of teaching methods was different to the effects of perceived frequency of
teacher praise. 5^th graders who felt happy with teacher praise based on ∞mparison with
others perceived more frequent deployment of Teacher explanation and individualised
teaching methods. 5^th graders who felt happy with teacher praise based on individual
improvement perceived more frequent deployment of all teaching methods except for
Using a computer. 8^th graders who felt happy with receiving teacher praise, overall, were
not affected in their perceived frequency of deployment of Using a computer. Their
feeling happy with teacher praise based on better results than others did not affect the
perceived frequency of deployment of Practical work and Group discussion.

Pupils of both grades perceived that positive affective attitudes to mathematics were
promoted by all teaching methods, when they perceived more frequent receipt of praise
and felt happy with teacher praise, although there were some exceptions. 5^th graders’
perceived frequency of teachers giving praise did not appear to affect their affective
attitudes promoted by Using a computer and individualised teaching methods. Their
feeling happy with teacher praise did not affect their positive affective attitudes perceived
as being promoted by Using a computer.

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