Investigating secondary students beliefs about mathematical problem-solving

ABSTRACT

Many studies over the past 30 years have highlighted the important role of students’ beliefs for successful problem-solving in mathematics. Given the recent emphasis afforded to problem-solving on the reformed Irish secondary school mathematics curriculum, the main aim of this study was to identify Irish students’ (n = 975) beliefs about the field. A quantitative measure of these beliefs was attained through the use of the Indiana Mathematical Belief Scale, an existing 30-item (five-scale) self-report questionnaire. A statistical analysis of the data revealed that students who were further through their secondary education had a stronger belief that not all problems could be solved by applying routine procedures. In contrast, the same students held less positive beliefs than their younger counterparts that they could solve time-consuming problems and that conceptual understanding was important. The analysis also indicated that gender had a significant impact on three of the five belief scales.

KEYWORDS:

• Mathematics
• beliefs
• problem-solving
• secondary school

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank all of the mathematics teachers in the nine schools for their interest and co-operation in helping to collect the data, particularly Melanie Kirwan, Alanna Roche, Siobhan Smyth and Paul Sweeney. We are also grateful to all the students who completed the questionnaires, without whom the research would not have been possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.