Document Type : Research Article
Authors
1 student
2 Department of Psychology , Faculty of Education Sciences and Psychology, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran
3 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education Sciences and Psychology, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran.
Abstract
Most students are facing problems in learning mathematics. These problems are related to the math course itself or related to external factors affecting it. The problems that are related to the mathematics lesson itself are caused by the content, nature and abstract nature of this knowledge, and the problems that are related to external factors are either internal or external. The intrapersonal origin is related to the individual characteristics of students in mental processing, learning, motivation and attitude and the external-personal origin is related to issues that are affected by educational factors and the way teachers treat and teach. Therefore, the current research with the aim of "multilevel analysis of the relationship between the perception of the teacher's diagnostic skills, the challenging level of the class, the quality of the teacher's teaching and math study skills with math performance in ninth grade students" seems necessary.
Method
The research method was a correlational type, namely multilevel analysis. The statistical population of this research was all ninth grade male and female students of first secondary school in Kohgiluyeh city, in Iran, in the academic year of 1401-1402, among them, a sample of 1000 people (500 male and 500 female) was selected by multi-stage random sampling method. Gartner's Class Evaluation Questionnaire (2010), Gentry and Springer's Scale of Students' Perception of Classroom Activities (2002), Kyriakides et al.'s Teaching Quality Scale (2000), Hooper's Math Study Skills Scale (1993) and students' grades of the first semester of math lessons were used to measure the variables of the research. Data were analyzed using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) method.
Results
The results of multilevel analysis showed that variables of level 1 (math study skills) and level 2 (average math study skills of class, perception of teacher's diagnostic skills, challenging level of class and quality of teacher’s teaching) were positively and significantly predicting math performance of students. The interactions of level 2 variables (average math study skills of class, perception of teacher's diagnostic skills and the challenging level of the class) with the slope of the relationship between math study skills and math performance were significant. Also, the difference in math performance among classes and the difference between classes in terms of the slope of math study skills and math performance were significant.
Discussion
Based on the multilevel analysis in this research, it can be concluded that paying attention to the improvement of students' math study skills and class variables (average class math study skills, perception of teacher's diagnostic skills, challenging level of class and quality of teacher’s teaching) will lead to the improvement of students' mathematical performance and their positive attitude towards this lesson.
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