WHAT ABOUT MOTIVATION IN MATHEMATICS?

A CLOSER LOOK ON THE IMPACT OF SCHOOL OPTIONS

Nuno Bessa*, José Manuel Santos** & Anne-Marie Fontaine***

*Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Portugal – nbessa@ipb.pt **Rocha Peixoto Secondary School, Portugal – santosdossantos@clix.pt ***University of Porto, Portugal – fontaine@psi.up.pt
ABSTRACT:
Because of their low achievement and low expectancies for success, many students choose professional courses. Math discipline clearly contributes to this, since it’s associated with students low motivational levels and achievement and school dropout. A study conducted earlier suggested that the context of professional schools
could be more favorable for achieving motivation than those of general high-schools. This study’s objective is to compare motivation in mathematics in different school settings and evaluate which dimensions of school context affects motivation and how. The results are reported in terms of school differences on math motivation,
school context differences and relationships among school context and motivational variables, allowing a better understanding about the variations of the relations between school context and motivation.

INTRODUCTION:
Professional schools represent a distinct context for learning than general high-schools. Because their main objective is to prepare future mid-level technicians, they show a different curricular structure with more practical disciplines and study subjects. Their population also differs from the one at general high-schools, because
professional schools represent a last opportunity for students who experienced failure or even dropout in regular schools. Therefore, should be expected that students from professional schools, because of their history of low achievement, would have low motivational levels and more debilitating motivational patterns than students
from general high-schools. However, earlier studies (Bessa, 2000; Bessa, Santos & Fontaine, 2002) suggested that the context of professional schools could be more favorable for achieving motivation, namely on math. Comparing two independent samples from general high-schools (N=220) and professional schools (N=180), the
authors (Bessa, Santos & Fontaine, 2002) found that students from professional schools found themselves less confident on math, but used more efficient learning strategies, using more frequently mastery pattern of behavior. No differences were observed on attitudes towards math and avoidance pattern. These results supports
the need for more comprehensive studies about motivational components of underachievement and about the classroom influence on motivation.

AIMS:
The objective of this study is to try to identify dimensions of school context that may affect students motivational patterns and how, which may help a better understanding about the relations between learning contexts and achievement motivation.

MEASURES: TABLE 01: DATA ON EVALUATION INSTRUMENTS

Math Attitude Scale (MAS) (Tuckman, 1994)

INSTRUMENT FACTORS Nº ITEMS ITEM EXAMPLE ALPHA
A 20 item, 6-point Likert scale. Factor analysis showed two factors: Positive attitudes (F1) and Negative attitudes (F2). The psychometric
Positive attitudes 8 I find math to be fun and fascinating .89
MAS - Math Attitude Scale
study of the scale is consistent with the results obtained in earlier investigations (Bessa, 2000; Bessa & Fontaine 1999).
(Tuckman, 1994) Negative attitudes 8 Solving a math problem makes me feel nervous .85
Self Description Questionnaire III (SDQIII) (Marsh & O’Niell, 1984)
For this study, it was used the math self-concept sub-scale, with 10 items, 6-point Likert scale. The results obtained are consistent with those SDQIII – Self Description Questionnaire (Marsh & O’ Niell, 1984) Unifactorial 10 I’m pretty good on math .87

obtained in other studies (Bessa, 2000; Faria & Fontaine, 1992). QAEM – Math Self-efficacy Questionnaire (Oliveira, 1996) Unifactorial 8 I’m very insecure about my capacities towards math .83
Math Self-efficacy Questionnaire (QAEM) (Oliveira, 1996)
Mastery pattern 20 I try to learn from mistakes .83
A 8 item, 6-point Likert unifactorial scale, with similar psychometric results as in other studies (Bessa, 2000). EAEAM – Math Learning Strategies Evaluation Scale
(Bessa & Fontaine, 1999)
Math Learning Strategies Evaluation Scale (EAEAM) (Bessa & Fontaine, 1999) Avoidance pattern 10 When I’m wrong I feel like giving up .73

A 76 item, 6-point Likert scale designed to evaluate students learning strategies, according to Dweck’s motivational model. Factor analysis Process learning centered 28 Teachers like students to make work proposals .90
showed a two factor structure. This results are slightly different from the ones obtained in earlier studies (Bessa, 2000; Bessa & Fontaine, Performance & rules 13 Students have to work hard if they want to get good grades .75
1999), but still consistent with the theoretical model.
Classroom Environment Scale (Trickett & Moos, 1974) Behavior control 11 Students are usually quiet .79
Classroom Environment Scale (Trickett & Moos, 1974)
Cooperation 11 It’s easy to do groupwork .74
A 90 item, 6-point Likert scale. Factor analysis showed five main dimensions: (F1) process learning centered, (F2) performance and rules,
(F3) control behavior, (F4) cooperation and (F5) arbitrary rules. This internal structure differs from the original one, but is somewhat similar to Arbitrary rules 10 If a student doesn’t behave properly, the teacher sends him out of the classroom .60

the ones found in other studies conducted in the Portuguese context (Menezes, 1998).

SAMPLE:
A total of 306 students (10th graders) from regular (56.9%) and professional schools participated in this study. From those, 52.6% are located in the interior regions of Portugal (47.4%). About half of the students are masculine (49.1%).

RESULTS:
Llinear regression procedures were used to identify the influences of motivational (self-concept, self-efficacy and attitudes) and classroom environment variables on students motivational patterns (mastery pattern vs. avoidance pattern). As shown in Tables 02 and 03, motivational patterns are predicted by different variables
according with the context. Mastery patterns in general high-schools are influenced by self-concept, self-efficacy and a classroom environment centered on the learning process, but also on behavior control and performance and rules if we consider general high-schools. In the case of professional schools, the mastery motivational
patterns appear associated with positive attitudes and a climate centered on the learning process. Debilitating patterns are associated with negative attitudes towards math and with arbitrary rules and performance in both type of schools – process centered climate also helps to explain this kind of pattern on regular schools.

TABLE 02: LINEAR REGRESSION FOR MASTERY AND AVOIDANCE PATTERNS: MOTIVATIONAL VARIABLES TABLE 03: LINEAR REGRESSION FOR MASTERY AND AVOIDANCE PATTERNS: CLASSROOM VARIABLES

MASTERY MASTERY
regular schools professional schools regular schools professional schools
Variables ß R2 change Total R2 Sig. Variables ß R2 change Total R2 Sig. Variables ß R2 change Total R2 Sig. Variables ß R2 change Total R2 Sig.
Self-concept .508 .100 .000 Process centered .408 .186 .000
.132 Positive attitudes .311 .097 .086 .003
Self-efficacy -.288 .046 .014 Behavior control -.361 .104 .335 .000 Process centered .312 .098 .085 .006
AVOIDANCE
Performance & rules .253 .063 .001
regular schools professional schools
AVOIDANCE
Variables ß R2 change Total R2 Sig. Variables ß R2 change Total R2 Sig.
regular schools professional schools
Negative attitudes .598 .357 .352 .000 Negative attitudes .664 .441 .435 .000
Variables ß R2 change Total R2 Sig. Variables ß R2 change Total R2 Sig.
Performance & rules -.334 .100 .000 Arbitrary rules .350 .126 .001
Arbitrary rules .219 .048 .157 .011 .170
Performance & rules -.254 .064 .014
Process centered -.173 .030 .041

DISCUSSION:

The results presented above are consistent with the expected, since self-concept explain the presence of a mastery pattern on students from general high-schools. Somewhat strange is the negative β weight of math self-efficacy. This could be explained because overconfident students may not resist so strongly to difficulties as
those less confident, which can be sustained by Dweck results (Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Mueller & Dweck, 1998). Attitudes explain both patterns for professional schools and the avoidance pattern for regular schools. This can be explained because students who adopt avoidance patterns share previous failure experiences. For
students from professional schools positive attitudes towards mathematics is the most strong predictor for mastery since these students behavior, due to their school history, may be ruled by more global and affective dimensions.

Concerning classroom environment, the perception that classroom environment is centered on process learning or on performance with strong rules and effort helps students to adopt a mastery pattern and protects them from the avoidance pattern. On the other end, the perception of arbitrary rules depending on the teachers lead
students to the adoption of avoidance patterns. It should be referred that the performance and rules dimension doesn’t contribute for mastery of students from professional schools. Therefore, it seems that students from professional schools may benefit more from classroom environments which doesn’t enhance performance and
rules, wich may lead to more competitive relationships and more pressure. Subsequent analysis (Anova One-way) have shown significant differences concerning the classroom environments between school contexts. Regular schools favor more performance and rules than professional schools (F= 10.50, df=1, p< .001), while
professional schools give more importance to process learning strategies (F=20.39, df=1, p<.001).

CONCLUSION:

The results of this study, although exploratory, may advise teachers and educators to look more carefully to context effects. In fact, we observed that different factors predict the same patterns of behavior in different school contexts. Therefore, the generalization of results across contexts must be done with caution and more
attention should be paid to to the specificity of each life context.