Saudi mathematics teachers’ beliefs and attitude towards teaching mathematics / Ghaythah Hamdan Theyab Alhallafi

Ghaythah Hamdan , Theyab Alhallafi (2020) Saudi mathematics teachers’ beliefs and attitude towards teaching mathematics / Ghaythah Hamdan Theyab Alhallafi. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

Mathematics is one of the major educational subjects in schools because of its overwhelming relevance and application to human life and progress. Mathematics is central to human development and mastery of the planet earth and beyond particularly in this age of computer and information technology. Teaching Mathematics is an endeavor that dated back three (3) millennia. For centuries, teaching and Mathematics teachers have been subjected to various forms of scholarly investigations. This study examines teachers’ beliefs and attitudes and their impacts on the way they teach the subject of mathematics in their respective schools across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The general objective of this study is to study mathematics teachers’ beliefs and attitudes, particularly at the intermediate school level in Saudi Arabia. To achieve this objective, the study completely relies on quantitative data obtained through survey questionnaires. The study distributed 146 questionnaires (100 female 68.5%, and 46 male 31.5%) to intermediate schools’ mathematics teachers based in the City of Riyadh and its surroundings, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study found that majority of the intermediate schools’ mathematic teachers participating in this study expressed high agreement and high level of beliefs towards teaching mathematics. In addition, it is also discovered that majority of the mathematic teachers participating in this study expressed high agreement that their attitudes towards teaching mathematics is very high. This means that there is a statistically significant relationship between mathematics teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards teaching mathematics and the relationship is a strong and positive one. Furthermore, the study also employs t-test to examine any statistical significance between male and female intermediate schools’ mathematics teachers. The results of the independent sample t-test show no statistically significant difference among both males and female’s mathematics teachers in the intermediate level of Saudi schools. Even though male mathematics teachers have higher beliefs regarding teaching mathematics than their female counterparts, the difference in the mean score of mathematics teachers’ beliefs is not large enough so that the results are not statistically significant. This was also found to be the case in relation to difference of mathematics teachers’ attitudes based on gender and experience. The study recommended further studies in other parts of Saudi Arabia to help in generalizing the findings of this research.

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