The relationships among Mathematical mindsets, task values, and perceived instructional practices of secondary school students

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to: 1) explore secondary school students' perceived instructional practices, learning values, and mathematical mindset; and 2) investigate the relationships among these variables. 936 secondary school students from the northeastern region of Thailand (489 lower secondary students and 447 upper secondary students) were chosen for the research sample using a multistage sampling technique. The study employed various research instruments, including a 6-item mathematical mindset scale (reliability coefficient of .849), a 16-item learning value scale which evaluated attainment value, intrinsic value, utility value, and cost value (reliability coefficients of .728, .829, .754, and .799), and a 10-item perceived instructional practices which assessed mastery- and performance-oriented goals (reliability coefficients of .809 and .759, respectively). The statistics used in the study involved mean, standard deviation, and Pearson's correlation coefficient.

The results showed that students' average growth mathematical mindset score was high ( = 4.55). While intrinsic value and cost value had moderate average scores ( = 3.32 and 3.23, respectively), attainment value and utility value had high average scores ( = 3.43 and 3.45, respectively). The mean scores for mastery- and performance-oriented perceived instructional practices were moderate ( = 3.31 and 2.90, respectively). The study discovered that the mathematical mindset, all four task values, and both types of perceived instructional practices had statistically significant relationships at the .01 level.