Action Research: Math Attitudes

Introduction The focus of this study was on student attitudes towards mathematics. The basis for this research stems from extensive discussion with my associate teachers in first and second year, as well as current media attention to teaching math in Ontario. For the purposes of this research I wanted to understand how we could improve student’s attitudes and grades in math. The overall goal was to improve student’s attitude in math and see if that would correlate with improved student math performance in the future.

As a former student of the Ontario education system I was exposed first hand to the education system and its approach to teaching math, in particular, the drawbacks of being one student in a larger group of students. As I was exposed to learning in smaller group settings in College and University I began to reflect on the potential for my grade school academic performance had I been allowed to learn in smaller group settings. Additionally as a student I was weaker in math than in other topics and feel that providing these smaller group settings would have improved my own performance.

The purpose of this study was to establish if student attitudes towards math in general, and on specific subtopics, could be improved through smaller group settings.

Background

In the summer of 2018 I noticed that math was becoming a big talking point during the provincial election. In particular, the mention of declining math scores on the EQAO (Education Quality Assessment Office) testing was being mentioned with increasing frequency. On the basis of these lowering EQAO scores, the current government of Ontario has been discussing changes to the math curriculum, with a focus on “back to basics”. Given this current focus on math I felt that it was the best time to reflect on my own learning, with regards to math, as a student. While several research studies have been conducted on student academic performance in relation to class sizes, very little has looked at the effects of pulling students out of class in small groups to scaffold knowledge and understanding within specific concepts of math. After several conversations with my associate teacher I decided that the best way for me to contribute to this discussion on the current state of math education in Ontario, would be to assess the effects smaller group settings can have on student’s attitudes towards math.

As per Ontario’s ministry of education a foundational principal for teaching math is to “design a responsive mathematics learning environment” (Paying attention to mathematics education, 2011). This ministry document lists the following as ways to meet the foundational principle: support for risk-taking in learning mathematics, positive attitudes and beliefs about mathematics, and providing space for collaborative work. With this foundational principle in mind, it is believed that these small group settings can work towards creating a responsive math learning environment.

Research Context

For the purposes of this assignment I decided to take advantage of my practicum placement in a grade six french immersion math class by taking out groups of students, no bigger than five, out into the hallway to provide a more in depth focus on specific math concepts. Using a series of Likert scales I assessed the following areas: how students felt about the concept being worked on (e.g. multiplication), how students felt about math in general, and how students felt about participating in the math groups, as well as a space at the bottom for them to provide any general feedback they had. Students were given a scale of one to five with one being lowest and five being the highest to circle for each of the Likert scale questions. Additionally a happy face was placed to the right of the number five and a sad face was placed to the left of the number one to help orient students to the scale.

Each student who participated was given a survey sheet at the beginning of the session, on which they were to write their name, the date and the concept being worked on. They were asked to complete the survey twice, once before we started and once after we finished. By conducting the surveys in this manner I was able to see short term and long term change over time. Every student was guaranteed that, while their responses would be viewed by myself, the first year teacher candidate in the class, our associate teacher and the Vice-Principal/Principal if need be, no one outside the three of us would be viewing their specific responses to the surveys. They were told that while their specific responses would be confidential, their responses would be reported on in a generalized context.

Participants were chosen on a weekly basis. Most participants were chosen by the associate teacher, with the intention of cycling everyone through the specific concepts. I did occasionally request specific students if I believed they would benefit from repeated sessions when planned students were unable to participate in the group for various reasons such as absence or unwillingness. Out of the fifty students only two were unwilling to participate in the math group for personal reasons, and of the two unwilling to participate only one made the decision to not participate without first attending one math group. Students were drawn from two grade six classes (labeled 6A and 6B).

Findings

Overall both classes showed improvements in understanding and attitude towards math after the math groups had been concluded for the week. On average each student marked one or two higher on the scale after the group than before. Occasionally there were large leaps, with the biggest being a jump from one to five in in 6B. In the case of the large jump it was determined to be a single concept that was causing them to get stuck in fractions and once they understood it the rest quickly fell into place. Of particular note were the following findings: gender seemed to have a minor impact on responses, on average girls were a single point below the boys on the questions “how do you feel about this topic?” and “how do you feel about math in general?”

Additionally girls were more likely to rate themselves higher on the question “How do you feel about these math groups?” in the beginning of the study, though by the end the majority of participants, across gender, were reporting fours and fives before and after group meetings. There also appeared to be little to no correlation with regards to attitudes towards math and attitudes towards the math groups as a whole. Finally, the boys showed slower growth in comfort with the concepts than the girls over time.

Generally, the students provided little in terms of additional comments in the space provided. Those who did generally made the same or similar comments such as: “the manipulatives [when we used them] made [multiplication] easier!” and “I like small groups because I can learn more and I feel more con[c]entrated.” No negative comments were recorded on the surveys.

Discussion

What these findings indicate is that, from the student’s perspective, smaller is better. Students find varying levels of success when discussing the math concepts in smaller group settings, but generally report a growing sense of comfort with the concepts discussed in the groups, and an even bigger growth with their comfort in math overall. The surveys also indicate that, while both genders benefitted, girls benefited most from the small group settings. One of the girls who responded to the survey put that they liked the groups because they could ask a question and get an immediate response, another said that they liked that people would ask questions they didn’t think of and that it helped their own understanding. Overall, the students seemed to benefit from the smaller group settings and enjoyed their experience with them.

Using the information found in this study I would make the following adaptations to my practice. The first change would be in full class discussions where I would try to replicate the back and forth between both myself and the students and between the students themselves that was frequent in the small group settings. The other adaptation to my teaching would be to incorporate more small groups with a focused learning goal similar to the groups that were run in this study. I acknowledge that the only reason these groups happened as frequently as they did was because of the ratio of adults to students in this particular circumstance. Having three adults in the room made running these groups frequently possible and I understand that having three adults in a classroom is not the norm. What I would try to do however, is try to incorporate these groups into my teaching at least once a week. Either as running the groups in a corner of the room while everyone else does seat work or math centers or have everyone broken into groups once a week and float, as the educator, from group to group every week. Week one I would go with group A, week two with group B and so on.

The reports from the survey indicate that the small group learning environments do indeed support the ministry principle of developing responsive learning environments. The groups provided students with space to work collaboratively to work on math concepts, to which they provided positive feedback. They liked being able to ask questions, or hear others ask questions, and receive immediate feedback. They also expressed that the groups improved their overall opinions and attitudes toward math. Therefore it is evident, as per student feedback that the student groups can be used to create responsive learning environments, in line with the ministry of education’s foundational principals laid out in their document: Paying Attention to Mathematics Education.

Future Steps For Research

One of the limitations when trying to find research on this topic was the lack of research into small group settings. Frequently I found research on smaller class sizes but little on such small groups. In discussion with other professional educators they seem to take for granted that smaller groups would equate to greater academic success, but none of them were really able to go into any sort of depth as to why they were so sure of this assertion. Furthermore none of them were able to express student views on the topic of why the smaller groups were beneficial to academic success. Therefore, future studies should seek to replicate these findings.

There were several limitations to the performance of this research. The first being that I was limited to two grade six classes. I am therefore unable to predict with absolute certainty how transferable these findings are to different grade levels. While I can be somewhat sure grades close in age would find similar if not-identical findings, I would be less comfortable transferring these findings to grades significantly higher or lower than these grade sixes. Another limitation was the time I had to conduct this research in. With a three month window to conduct the survey I had just enough time to gauge changing attitudes towards the varying concepts, but not enough time to determine whether or not academic success changed over time. A future study that is able to follow the same class across grades would address many of these limitations and provide much richer findings to extrapolate from.

Resources for small group discussions

1.http://www.dreambox.com/blog/small-group-instruction-as-a-differentiating-instruction- strategy-4-tips-to-remember

This blog lays out some tips for educators who choose to pursue several small group discussions simultaneously. They help to encourage success in the groups where the teacher is not present.

2.http://www.fcrr.org/assessment/pdf/smallGroupAlternativeLessonStructures.pdf

A useful resource for those who would like to conduct similar groups with a focus on learning to read in kindergarten to grade three. Focuses on differentiated instruction.

3. https://www.corelearn.com/small-group-instruction-blog/

Useful resource that details how to setup effective small group instruction.