In this qualitative action research study, five lower-achieving freshman prealgebra students in a rural high school were interviewed about mathematics anxiety. The subjects ranged in age from 13 to 15 years and included three boys and two girls, of which one was Hispanic, one was African-American, and three were Caucasian. These students had tested below the fourth-grade level in mathematics during their eighth-grade year and were placed in special pre-algebra classes, which met for 30 additional minutes each day and progressed with more depth, but at a slower pace. The researcher employed personal interviews to answer the research question: How do students describe and cope with mathematics anxiety? The researcher utilized the constant comparative method to analyze data and developed the following seven categories: setting and background information; self-image; mathematics difficulties; success in mathematics; support for learning; teacher support; and coping techniques, which was the context of the students’ anxiety. While they have encountered some success in mathematics, the descriptions of support from family and student friends, along with teacher support, explain how these students’ cope with the anxiety. When the students talked positively about mathematics, they discussed activities that made mathematics fun or enjoyable. However, these participants also spoke of negative mathematics experiences as early as the first grade. A poor self-image, as it relates to a student’s mathematical knowledge, affects current learning. Past negative perceptions appeared to contribute to their defeat. The findings coincided with previous research that mathematics anxiety is negatively related to mathematics achievement. Students reported gains from hands-on activities, facilitative teaching, teacher encouragement, additional assessments, and goal settings, but interview data suggested they had mostly given up on getting much better in mathematics, because they thought they were not going to succeed. They stopped trying and giving up was their way of coping.

Since the mid-20th century in the United States, there have been several reform movements within mathematics education; each movement has been subject to its own unique socio-cultural and -political forces. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ (NCTM) Standards documents—Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (1989), Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (1991), Assessment Standards for School Mathematics (1995), and Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000)—not only represent the most recent of these reform movements but also the most enduring. Collectively, these documents have formed a discourse (cf. Foucault, 1969/1972)—Standards-based mathematics education—that has guided mathematics education through the 1990s and beyond. This study uses Foucaultian archaeological and genealogical methods (cf. Foucault, 1969/1972, 1975/1995) to explore Standards-based mathematics education as a “discursive formation” (Foucault, 1969/1972) and the complex power relations (cf. Foucault, 1976/1990) that made it possible for the formation to become The discourse of school mathematics, making others impossible. Data for the exploration includes the Standards documents, earlier histories of the NCTM Standards moment, scholarly and policy literature surrounding the NCTM documents, and oral history interviews with several of the writers of the NCTM documents. The study presents a historical narrative of mathematics education in the 20th century that both contextualizes Standards-based mathematics education and problematizes NCTM’s efforts; a key focus is the strategy that NCTM deployed to maintain the viability of Standards-based mathematics education as a discourse. Foucault’s (1984) “author function” is used to address the ways that the writers, externalities, and NCTM as an organization “authored” the Standards documents. The study concludes arguing that perpetuating the discursive formation of Standards-based mathematics education is neither good nor bad but only dangerous; therefore, it requires mathematics educators to maintain a sense of pessimistic activism related to present and future reform efforts (cf. Foucault, 1983/1997).

Teacher leadership has emerged as a component of the movement to increase student achievement in science and mathematics. The Information Technology in Science Center for Teaching and Learning (ITS Center) was funded by the National Science Foundation with the goal of developing science education leaders. This study explored the changes in teachers' descriptions of their leadership in their school settings before and after their participation in a science education leadership program and the aspects of their science education leadership. A study of teacher-participants in Cohort II of the ITS Center was conducted to investigate how they demonstrated leadership in their school settings and to what extent these teachers attributed changes in their leadership to their ITS Center experience. Participants in this study were 15 classroom teachers who participated in Cohort II of the ITS Center. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies were used. These teacher-participants completed a Teacher Leadership Roles Survey as a part of their application to participate and then again one year after their ITS Center participation. Their primary leadership roles were to serve as a source of knowledge and a generator of new ideas for their fellow teachers. Their major activity was to develop curricular/instructional materials. However, the change in their leadership roles and activities was highly variable. As the literature indicates, demonstration of teacher leadership is highly dependent on context. The participants who greatly increased their leadership roles and activities moved into new, formal leadership roles following their ITS Center experience. Participants who greatly decreased their leadership roles and activities had changed school campuses or districts. A case study was conducted of two teachers demonstrating a great increase in leadership. They identified the components of the ITS Center experience that contributed to increased leadership roles and activities as: relationships developed with fellow teachers, graduate students, and university faculty; extended time for engagement in ITS Center activities; accountability for implementation of ITS Center Instructional Frameworks and Practitioner Research Plan; and their increased understanding of educational research and the role it plays in evidence-based decision making.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Walter Feinberg. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-210) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> The Study Island computer program is one of many highly used instructional programs in school districts nationwide; however, there is little independent research available that provides information about its impact on student achievement performance. This study used a descriptive comparative research design to compare the mean gain scores of the semester that students received math instruction with Study Island to mean gain scores of the semester that students did not receive math instruction with the program to determine if a significant difference exists between the two semesters. The test scores from a sample of 124 ninth-grade math students from an economically disadvantaged suburban school district in a southeastern state were used. The results concluded that the mean gain scores from pretest to posttest of the semester that students used the Study Island program were significantly higher than that of the semester that students did not use the program.</p>

<p> In the United States, high school students have performed lower in mathematics than all the industrialized countries since the First International Study was administered in 1964. Studies revealed that a large number of high school graduates are not proficient in mathematics and are not ready for college mathematics or the workforce. This qualitative research intended to answer the question of why the U.S. high school students underperform in mathematics through teacher perceptions on the current curriculum and methods of instruction used in high school mathematics classes. The question was answered by exploring the perceptions of 12 high school mathematics teachers in northwest Florida through a survey of 16 open-ended questions and a focus group discussion that guided the research. Furthermore, the survey and focus group data were triangulated with teacher artifacts that included lesson plans. This resulted in an aggregate of 15 themes that included time, professional development, gap in the students&rsquo; knowledge, student encouragement, application to real world, resources, rigor, student encouragement, teacher collaboration, student ownership, standardized testing, traditional teaching, too many topics, two-tracks courses, practice and mental math, and student collaboration.</p><p> The findings of this research support the need to provide teachers with more time to teach, plan, and collaborate. Teachers also need more support from the educational leaders to provide professional development that will help teachers apply real-world, collaborative learning, and move away from the current traditional teaching that most of the participating teachers in this study prefer.</p>

<p> Research has generally demonstrated that students enrolled in developmental mathematics courses are leaving these courses without achieving conceptual understanding and transferrable knowledge and skills. Such outcomes have challenged educators to incorporate instructional strategies that have the most significant effect on the success of students in developmental education courses, in particular reform-based practices for the teaching of developmental mathematics courses based on constructivism. However, there is little or no empirical information on which of these instructional strategies and designs are being used (and by whom), as well as on the frequency of use, perceived value or importance to learning, and instructors' beliefs in their ability to use these best practices. </p><p> This cross-sectional study was intended to fill this gap by examining the role of personal teaching efficacy and perceived usefulness in determining the use of reform-based practices by instructors teaching developmental mathematics at the postsecondary level. Data was collected from 160 developmental or remedial mathematics instructors at two- and four-year regionally accredited postsecondary institutions in the United States who responded to a Web-based survey. Multiple statistical methods were applied to analyze the data, including correlation and multiple regression analyses. </p><p> Findings indicated that personal teaching efficacy and perceived usefulness each has a significant positive correlation with the use of reform-based practices, with personal teaching efficacy having the stronger correlation. In addition, only personal teaching efficacy was statistically significant for the regression model. These findings suggest that activities to support the use of reform-based practices include ways to increase instructors' beliefs in their ability to use reform-based practices. Directions for future research should continue to focus on instructors' beliefs and attitudes toward the use of reform-based practices as a means for improving developmental mathematics instruction. </p>

<p> In the city selected for this study, only 29% of inner-city students scored proficiently on standardized tests, whereas 71% of their peers at nearby suburban and affluent schools achieved the proficiency level. To address the gap, the local district implemented ability grouping in one charter school. The purpose of this ex post facto quasi-experimental study was to examine the effect of ability grouping among inner-city students in mathematics as an instructional intervention for improving student achievement. Ability grouping theory as an instructional strategy was used as the theoretical framework for this study. The criterion measure of mathematics improvement was provided by the test results from the Northwest Evaluation Association&rsquo;s Measure of Academic Progress (NWEA-MAP), a computer-adaptive assessment of mathematics. Using population data for 2012&ndash;2014 inner-city 8th graders who took the pretest and posttest NWEA-MAP (<i>N</i> = 234), two 1-way analyses of variances were used to test for mean differences in the NWEA-MAP improvement scores between ability-grouped (<i>n</i> = 115) and non-ability-grouped (<i>n</i> = 115) students, then specifically between students who were grouped as high ability (<i>n</i> = 55) and low ability (<i> n</i> = 55). The ability-grouped students had significantly higher improvement scores than did the nongrouped students. For those students who were ability grouped, no statistically significant difference existed in improvement between the high and low ability groups. A position paper was developed recommending student grouping to improve academic performance of inner-city school students. Positive social change will occur as the achievement gap is closed for students who attend inner-city schools.</p>

This dissertation outlines findings from a critical ethnographic research study that attempted to document young Latinas engaging in critical mathematics education, with implications for shifting dominant ideas about the form and goals of education. As Latina youth are marginalized from classrooms and in society where their language, culture, practices, and community are seen as "problems," and particularly in mathematics classrooms where a dominant culture is said to further exclude girls, there is an exigency to understand how in fact Latina students could experience education as transformative. Critical race and feminist theories further argue for centralizing the experiences of women or girls of color as essential to understanding where change can happen in society because of the role that racism and sexism play in structuring educational experiences. Therefore, this study foregrounds the experiences of young Latinas as they engage in critical mathematics.A critical educational paradigm has been put forth whose purpose is to develop critical literacy in students where they investigate, make apparent and challenge oppressive societal structures. This critical ethnographic research study seeks to gain a more nuanced understanding of how young Latinas experience a social justice mathematics learning environment through the facilitation and research of an after-school, all girls mathematics club. More specifically, data in the form of field notes, videotaped sessions, classroom observations, student work and interviews offers a rich source for analysis of their practices in the learning environment, their perceptions of mathematics, themselves as learners of mathematics and as people who can make changes in their lives, communities and in the world. The construct of critical mathematical agency is employed in attempting to understand how the participants' actions expressed a sense of being able to use mathematics to critique and change their worlds. Analysis revealed they engaged in resistance, research and (re)authoring, as ways of expressing critical mathematical agency. In addition, their insight into critical mathematics education highlights the importance of incorporating critical funds of knowledge, fostering collectivity, and centering the experiences in authentic, community contexts. This understanding will inform arguments for seeking social justice through mathematics education and educational research, particularly for Latina youth.