Positive social climate for enhancing students' math self-concept: some research findings
In Nov 2002, a research team in the National Institute of Education, NTU, launched a cross-discipline quasi-experimental study on “Positive Social Climate for Enhancing Students’ Math Self-concept”. Its main objective was to find the attributes (variables) in the social climate which are accountable for the increase of self-concept of Secondary Two students in the Math remedial classes in Singapore neighbourhood schools. Phase I of this study ( in 2003) was Instrumentation: validating the scales used in the measurement of treatment effect. H.W. Marsh’s Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ-II, 1990), and B. Fraser’s “What Is Happening In This Class?” questionnaire (WIHIC) were validated together with the Motivational Orientation scale and Intellectual Achievement Responsibility (IAR) questionnaire. More than 700 Secondary Two students from four neighbourhood schools took part in this validating exercise. Phase II was Intervention`(in 2004): the teachers’ interactions with students, the enhancement of students’ capabilities and confidence. A training workshop for teachers in the experimental groups was conducted before the intervention. Two schools had the experimental groups and another two neighbourhood schools’ samples were held as the control groups of this study. Based on the results in Phase I, only two instruments: SDQII and WIHIC were selected to measure the effect of intervention. The total sample in this phase was close to 1000 Sec 2 students.
The use of mathematics competition questions for mainstream primary mathematics classroom instruction
Mathematics competition questions can have a wider use in the mainstream mathematics classroom instructions beyond the rather restrictive mathematics competition environment. Efforts have been taken by the education community to popularize mathematics by utilizing these questions for the general student population. However, most of the work cited were mainly adapting or modifying competition questions for mathematics instruction at the secondary level. In this paper, we propose with two exemplars how selected mathematics competition questions can provide the affordance to engage the general primary school student population in the problem solving processes.