Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / I address the relevance of quality learning and teaching in South African high schools’ as it relates to the strategic direction provided by high school leadership for the benefit of knowledge economies and higher learning institutions. The main research question is: “How does educational leadership influence the quality of learning and teaching of high school mathematics?” The research was framed within a confirmatory study viewing quality learning and teaching from a doing mathematics perspective, within the context of a community of practice acknowledging that school leadership can also be situated within the same practice, i.e. doing mathematics. The research was qualitatively designed to employ unstructured, semi-structured and focus group discussion interviews with the school leaders, teachers and students respectively. These enquiries were conducted within six high schools’ representatives of all previously South African demographical perspectives. The analysis was conducted through interpretive phenomenological analysis for sensemaking of situational leadership within a mathematical practice. The findings of the research lacked “doing mathematical” depth, beyond students and teachers. Explanatory findings of a grounded theoretical analysis yielded a school leadership’s silence on quality learning and teaching of mathematics contrary to the literature review’s expectation. The significance of the study lies in the possibilities associated with an under-research stakeholder to the development of quality learning and teaching of mathematics and meeting the expectations of knowledge economies and higher educational institutions.

No description available.

No description available.

Despite agreement among researchers about the powerful influence of attitudes and beliefs on the development of students’ mathematical knowledge base (Leder, Pehkonen, & Törner, 2002), relatively little is known about these constructs in statistics education. This study investigated the relationship between mathematics-and statistics-related attitudes and beliefs of 11 high school students in an introductory statistics course designed around a 13-week long service-learning project. Service-learning is a pedagogical approach that situates academic learning in the context of community service. The study utilized qualitative, teacher-researcher (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993) methodology from an interpretivist perspective. The three primary modes of data collection were journals, narratives, and an open-ended survey (Survey of Mathematical and Statistical Affect). Observations and reflections were also recorded regularly in a researcher journal. Inquiry adhered to guidelines for trustworthiness and rigor as outlined by Lincoln and Guba (1985). Item, pattern, and structural levels of analysis were employed (LeCompte and Schensul, 1999b). Investigation into attitudes and beliefs was framed in accordance with Op t’ Eynde, De Corte, and Verschaffel’s (2002) conceptualization of the mathematics-related belief system and McLeod’s (1992) framework of the affective domain in mathematics education. Results indicate that participants’ attitudes toward mathematics and statistics tended to converge while participants’ beliefs regarding mathematics and statistics tended to diverge. Participants like mathematics and statistics that involve real-life scenarios. Participants also like mathematics and statistics that do not require complex mathematical tasks. Participants’ beliefs regarding statistics were generally more positive than beliefs regarding mathematics. Participants reported greater confidence doing statistics than mathematics and contribute this confidence, in part, to service-learning. Participants also experienced a heightened sense of social awareness and social responsibility through the service-learning project. These results provide evidence that service-learning can be utilized to solidify positive attitudes and beliefs regarding statistics among high school students, in spite of potentially less positive ones toward mathematics.