Abstract The purpose of this study was to describe the culturally responsive teaching practices of adult education ESOL and EAP teachers in the state of Florida. Using Ginsberg and Wlodkowski's Motivational Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching, an online survey of 17 teaching practices was developed and validated. In the survey, participants assessed how frequently they used each practice and how important they believed each practice was to their teaching on 5-point frequency scales. The sampling frame consisted of teachers from 15 colleges, 2 universities, 8 school districts, and Bay Area Regional TESOL (BART) and resulted in 134 responses. Results indicated that the most frequently used practice was "provide rubrics and progress reports to students" (M = 4.26), followed closely by "elicit students' experiences in pre-reading and pre-listening activities" (M = 4.24). The least frequently used practice was "include lessons about anti-immigrant discrimination or bias" (M = 2.51), followed by "students work independently, selecting their own learning activities" (M = 2.76). Also, results indicated that the two most important practices were "provide rubrics and progress reports to students" (M = 4.13) and "elicit students' experiences in pre-reading and pre-listening activities" (M = 4.13). Five culturally responsive teaching practices were perceived to be the least important. They were "include lessons about anti-immigrant discrimination or bias" (M = 2.58), "learn words in students' native languages" (M = 2.89), "ask for student input when planning lessons and activities" (M = 2.90), "students work independently, selecting their own learning activities" (M = 2.91), and "encourage students to speak their native language with their children" (M = 2.96). This study revealed a trend of adult education ESOL and EAP teachers' regular use of culturally responsive teaching practices. These findings add to the limited knowledge of how teachers in ethnically and linguistically heterogeneous classrooms create and support a learning environment for all learners.

Forskning har visat att motivation har en stor betydelse för elevens lärande och välmående i skolan. Motivation har en lång forskningshistoria vilket har skapat en stor mängd tankar och idéer kring vad motivation är och hur den på bästa sätt kan främjas hos individen. Under senare år har motivationsforskning övergått till att i större omfattning använda socio-kognitiva modeller vilket har bidragit till en ny förståelse av motivationens flerdimensionalitet. Ur ett socio-kognitivt perspektiv framstår inte en elevs motivation vara ett stabilt personlighetsdrag utan snarare reflektera det möte som uppstår mellan undervisningens kontext och vilka förutsättningar eleven tar med sig in i denna kontext. För att nå en förståelse för elevens motivation att lära behövs således både en insikt om vilka förutsättningar eleven tar med sig in i en undervisningssituation samt hur undervisningens kontext påverkar dessa förutsättningar.Syftet med detta examensarbete är att undersöka hur elevens lärande inom matematik samt lärarens arbete med att motivera elever att lära sig matematik kan förstås ur ett motivationsteoretiskt perspektiv. Ett motivationsteoretiskt perspektiv betyder för denna studie att elever och lärares redogörelser har analyserats utifrån ett ramverk bestående av åtta motivationsteoretiska aspekter framtagna ur en syntes av motivationsteorierna självbestämmandeteorin, målorienteringsteorin samt förväntningar och värdeteorin.Studien genomfördes på två kommunala gymnasieskolor i Stockholmsområdet och deltagarna bestod av elever från varierande årskurser och programinriktningar samt lärare med lång respektive kort tid i yrket. Studien tillämpade en blandad metod där data samlades in via en enkät och intervjuer med elever och lärare. Deskriptiv analys utfördes på studiens enkätresultat med hjälp av statistikprogrammet SPSS och en riktad innehållsanalys genomfördes utifrån studiens ramverk på intervjuresultatet för att se hur motivationsteoretiska aspekter kom till uttryck i elever och lärares redogörelser. Resultatet visade att ungefär hälften av de motivationsteoretiska aspekter som ingick i ramverket aktualiserades i låg grad hos eleverna. Många av eleverna hade en positiv inställning gentemot matematikämnet och upplevde att de vara motiverade att lära sig matematik, men det fanns även många elever som hade en motsatt uppfattning. Dessa elever verkade ha tappat tron på sig själva och upplevde inte att undervisningen tog hänsyn till deras mer utmanande situation. Likväl visade det sig att lärarna upplevde att det var svårt att förverkliga ett motivationsarbete i sin undervisning på grund av tidsbrist och begränsningar kopplade till styrdokumenten. En märkbar konsekvens av detta var att elevernas inflytande och deltagande i undervisningen blev väldigt begränsat. Med utgångspunkt i detta resultat och tidigare forskning presenteras förslag för hur matematikundervisning kan organiseras för att främja elevens motivation att lära sig matematik. / Research has shown that student motivation plays a significant part in students academic success and well-being in school. In the field of educational research, motivation has long been a topic of interest which has produced an large amount of thoughts and ideas about what motivation is and what learning environments promote motivation most effectively. In recent years, researchers have increasingly began to use social cognitive models to explain motivation which has produced a new understanding of motivation as a multifaceted phenomenon. From a socio-cognitive perspective it has become clear that motivation cannot be explained as a stable personality trait. Instead, motivation can be understood to reflect the meeting point between the classroom context and what unique circumstances each student brings with him or herself into this context. Thus, in order to understand student motivation, one must first seek to understand the conditions each student brings to the classroom and how the classroom context affects each students unique circumstances. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how student accounts of learning mathematics and teachers classroom practices to motivate students to learn mathematics can be understood from a motivational theoretical perspective. In this study a motivational theoretical perspective refers to a framework that was developed from a synthesis of the three motivational theories, self-determination theory, goal orientation theory and expectancy-value theory.The study was conducted in two Swedish upper secondary schools with students from mixed grades and different educational programs and teachers with both short and long experience in the teacher profession. The study used a mixed method and the data was collected via a questionnaire that students participated in and through interviews with both students and teachers. Descriptive analysis was performed on the quantitative data using SPSS and a directed qualitative content analysis was performed using the developed framework on the qualitative data. The results showed that nearly half of the categories within the framework were satisfied in low levels within the students. Although many of the students had a positive attitude towards mathematics and felt that they were motivated to learn mathematics, there were also many students who had an opposite view. These students appeared to have had lost faith in themselves and did not experience that the learning environment took their more challenging circumstances into consideration. All of the teachers experienced a difficulty in including a motivational perspective in their teaching practice due to time constraints and limitations associated with the guidelines provided by the school system. A notable consequence of these circumstances was that student participation in learning activities and involvement in the decision making of the learning practices became very limited. Based on this result and previous research, suggestions were given on how the learning environment can be organized to promote student motivation in mathematics.