The beginning of this process was very difficult for me. I had lots of ideas, but none that I had “influence” over and I struggled to find a workable real-life problem. Thanks to Professor Svihla’s suggestions, I have a project that interests me and that I have influence over. My original hypothesis was that students are not confident or comfortable doing math problems, and vocational education instructors need real-life math problems that are related to trades work. I went to the school twice – once just to get a feel for the school and the students, and the second time to meet with two faculty members. During my initial visit I learned that creating math problems related to the trades was not the actual issue. The actual problem is that many math students do not have confidence when doing math and have negative feelings regarding the entire topic of mathematics. What could be done to change this reaction among math students? How can they learn to appreciate math and to see its application in the real world? I felt some pressure because of the inability to meet with the instructors right away so that I could get started immediately. This is why I investigated possible problems associated with mathematics education. I filled the two weeks between the two meetings by doing some research about student math attitudes. I found a lot of data regarding the negative ways that many students feel about math and the practice of using surveys to gauge emotional and supportive measures needed to help students develop both proficiency and an appreciation of math, reversing the negative feelings. I created a survey of my own using samples that I found online. I then used an app called Survey Monkey and entered 100 questions. I discovered that I would have to subscribe to the service to use a survey with more than ten questions. So, I copied the questions into Excel and formatted the survey to make it easy to complete. My daughter then helped me reword and edit the list of survey questions, ending up with about 85.
This is what the survey looked like in Survey Monkey. I originally thought to use a star rating for this questionnaire because younger students use ratings with social media and it would be a familiar method.
I returned to the school last week and was able to meet with a transition coach and a math instructor. We discussed how the math instructors incorporate math into real life situations and projects. This school uses math in ways that are reflective of real life situations, are hands on, and are within each student’s math abilities, all of which create confidence and mathematical ability. But there are still those students who could benefit from even more intervention emotionally towards math. I suggested using a survey to get more answers. My suggestion was well received, and after making a few more adjustments, I gave them the survey file which they will have their students complete next week.
This is the survey that I created. If you would like to take the survey, here is a link:
If you want to submit to me for my research, my email is [email protected]. I will happily add it to my future research into how to help students learn to enjoy math.
Here is a brief conversation concerning how this school uses math...
2 Comments
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11/26/2023 03:07:04 am
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