The purpose of the present study is to investigate the factors affecting mathematical literacy of 15-year-old students in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) across different cultural settings. The present study was conducted across three countries. These countries are Brazil, Japan and Norway. The countries were selected on the basis of their rankings in PISA 2000 study. Japan represented a high performing country with an average score of 557, Norway represented an average performing country with an average score of 499, and Brazil represented a low performing country with an average score of 334. The study explored how mathematical literacy is stimulated by predictors related to the students, the families and the school. A separate factor analysis was carried out for each questionnaire such as student questionnaire and cross curricular competencies questionnaire within the data of each country. Since the results of factor analyses of three countries were parallel, the observed variables representing the latent variables were selected from the student questionnaire and cross curricular competencies questionnaire administered in PISA 2000 in order to be used in the structural equation modeling. The included factors affecting mathematical literacy in PISA 2000 are attitudes towards reading, student-teacher relations, climate, communication with parents, usage of technology and facilities, attitudes towards mathematics and reading literacy. The proposed model was tested using structural equation modeling across three different cultures with different performance levels in PISA 2000. The findings of the study show that the latent independent variable having the strongest effect on mathematical literacy is the usage of technology and facilities in Brazil, communication with parents in Japan and attitudes towards reading in Norway. Moreover, the results were as follows: (1) Reading literacy significantly and positively influences mathematical literacy in all three countries. (2) There is a reciprocal relationship between the attitudes towards mathematics and mathematical literacy. In Brazil, the influence of attitudes towards mathematics on mathematical literacy is higher. However, the influence of mathematical literacy on attitudes towards mathematics is higher in Norway. (3) The attitudes towards reading have a negative direct effect and a positive indirect effect on mathematical literacy. (4) The student-teacher relations have a positive effect on mathematical literacy in Japan and Norway. But, in Brazil, this effect is negative. (5) The student-related factors affecting school climate are significantly and positively related to mathematical literacy in Brazil. On the other hand, the effect of climate on mathematical literacy is negative in Japan and non-significant in Norway. (6) Communication with parents significantly and positively influences the mathematical literacy in all three countries. (7) The usage of technology and facilities significantly and positively affects mathematical literacy in Brazil. However, this effect is negative in Japan and non-significant in Norway.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/1050434/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 January 2003 |
| Creators | Is, Cisdem |
| Contributors | Berberoslu, Giray |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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