Jansen (2008)

An Investigation of Relationships between Seventh-Grade Students' Beliefs and Their Participation during Mathematics Discussions in Two Classrooms

The article An Investigation of Relationships between Seventh-Grade Students' Beliefs and Their Participation during Mathematics Discussions in Two Classrooms was written by Amanda Jansen and published in Mathematical Thinking and Learning in 2008. The article is available from Taylor & Francis Online at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10986060701820327.

Abstract

As mathematics teachers attempt to promote classroom discourse that emphasizes reasoning about mathematical concepts and supports students' development of mathematical autonomy, not all students will participate similarly. For the purposes of this research report, I examined how 15 seventh-grade students participated during whole-class discussions in two mathematics classrooms. Additionally, I interpreted the nature of students' participation in relation to their beliefs about participating in whole-class discussions, extending results reported previously (Jansen, 2006) about a wider range of students' beliefs and goals in discussion-oriented mathematics classrooms. Students who believed mathematics discussions were threatening avoided talking about mathematics conceptually across both classrooms, yet these students participated by talking about mathematics procedurally. In addition, students' beliefs about appropriate behavior during mathematics class appeared to constrain whether they critiqued solutions of their classmates in both classrooms. Results suggest that coordinating analyses of students' beliefs and participation, particularly focusing on students who participate outside of typical interaction patterns in a classroom, can provide insights for engaging more students in mathematics classroom discussions.

Outline of Headings

• Theoretical Perspective
  • Adolescents and Mathematics Classroom Discourse
  • Students' Opportunities for Involvement
  • Students' Diverse Experiences with Mathematics Classroom Discussions
• Methods
  • Setting
  • Participants
  • Data Collection
    • Opportunities to participate
    • Students' participation
  • Data Analysis
    • Opportunities to participate
    • Students' beliefs
    • Students' participation
    • Relationships between students' beliefs and participation
• Results
  • Opportunities to participate in each classroom
  • Students' Participation across Classrooms in Relation to Their Beliefs
    • Students' beliefs: participating leads to learning
    • Students' beliefs: participating is threatening
    • Students' participation: discussing concepts
    • Students' participation: discussing procedures
    • Students' beliefs: appropriate behavior
    • Students' participation: critique and positioning
• Discussion
  • Conjectures about the Development of Relationships between Beliefs and Participation
    • Influence of current classroom teacher
    • Students' histories with mathematics
    • The role of the mathematics curriculum
• Implications

Also

APA

Jansen, A. (2008). An investigation of relationships between seventh-grade students' beliefs and their participation during mathematics discussions in two classrooms. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 10(1), 68–100. doi:10.1080/10986060701820327

BibTeX

@article{Jansen2008,
author = {Jansen, Amanda},
doi = {10.1080/10986060701820327},
journal = {Mathematical Thinking and Learning},
number = {1},
pages = {68--100},
title = {{An investigation of relationships between seventh-grade students' beliefs and their participation during mathematics discussions in two classrooms}},
url = {http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10986060701820327},
volume = {10},
year = {2008}
}