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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making changes in their environments, set realistic goals for themselves, engage in
activities on which they put value, possess positive expectations for out∞mes and take
responsibility for their behaviour. In contrast, pawns typically have feelings of
powerlessness and ineffectiveness, perceive situations as threatening, and exhibit task
avoidance, because of a low perception of personal causation. Pupils’ origin behaviour
can be fostered through training teachers so that they enhance pupils’ academic
motivation, help student to set up realistic goals, and encourage students to take
personal responsibility (de Charms, 1976; 1984).

There has been some research suggesting such individual differences among Japanese
children. For instance, Nakayama (1989) reported that Japanese 6^th graders who were
conscious about social relationships in a class and those who were interested in the task
had different learning styles. Pupils who had both high social and task orientation
favoured receiving more direction and information from the teacher. Task-oriented pupils
favoured self-reliance and self-decision, while socially oriented pupils relied on
information from the teacher. Those who had both low social and task orientation
perceived that they received less information.

Lepper et al. (1989) proposed that learning activities and materials could promote pupils’
intrinsic motivation. They mentioned that learning activities and materials containing
challenge, curiosity and fantasy, can promote the individuals’ intrinsic motivation.
Challenge informs the learners of the need to improve their competence, and in turn,
raises self-efficacy and perceived control over outcomes. Curiosity, which is elicited by
the incongruity between the learners’ current knowledge or beliefs and task content,
encourages learners to seek information and internalises new knowledge or beliefs into
mental schemata. Fantasy can enhance perceived task value. Greater interest in
activities promotes the learners’ attention to relevant features of the learning context and
increasing cognitive effort in the learning activity, which in turn, produces better learning.

Taken together this research suggests that pupils’ perceptions of their competence and
internal perception of control (autonomy) determine the extent to which pupils enjoy
learning, i.e. intrinsic motivation. Pupils’ perceptions of their competence and autonomy
are believed to be cultivated through the internalisation of independence and mastery
goals. Pupils’ intrinsic motivation seems to be affected by environmental factors.

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