Abstracts - Earli

H730 August 2007 11:00 - 12:20Room: PP7Poster SessionPoster sessionChair:Krisztián Józsa, University of Szeged, HungaryA survey on emotions, attitudes, and beliefs in mathematical problem solvingGiorgos Georgiou, University of Cyprus, CyprusEleftheria Charalambous, University of Cyprus, CyprusMichalis P. Michaelides, Cyprus College, CyprusGeorge Philippou, University of Cyprus, CyprusA survey was conducted to investigate the emotions, attitudes, and beliefs of 5th- and 6th-gradersin the context of mathematical problem solving. The study was carried out in elementary schoolsin Cyprus using a 34-item questionnaire and a sample size of 277 students. Findings revealed highlevels of self-efficacy beliefs, pleasure, and control, and low levels of phobia and anxiety duringproblem solving tasks. Well-known conceptions on mathematical problem solving, such as "onlyclever students can solve mathematical problems", "learning mathematics is mostly memorization"and "a mathematical problem must be solved in 10 minutes or less otherwise it cannot be solved"were confirmed. The participants on average expressed disagreement to the commonly held beliefthat "mathematics problems have only one solution". The subscales measuring emotions andattitudes – self-efficacy, phobia-anxiety, pleasure, control and problem type preferences – were runthrough factor analysis. All five subscales were all positively correlated with each other to amedium to high degree. No gender or grade differences on the subscales were identified apart froma difference on self-efficacy in favor of 5th-graders. This study demonstrates some descriptivefindings about various affective factors, which in turn influence mathematical problem solving.We propose that other methodologies must be employed in future studies on this topic.School and classrooms effects on students’ motivation and engagementCarole Vezeau, Cegep Regional de Lanaudiere a Joliette, CanadaRoch Chouinard, Universite de Montreal, CanadaJulie Bergeron, Universite de Montreal, CanadaTherese Bouffard, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, CanadaMichel Jánosz, Universite de Montreal, CanadaResearch on school effects try to determine how the enrolment in a particular school or a particularclassroom makes a difference in the success of students, beyond their personal and socialcharacteristics. Results on the school effect with regards to academic achievement show variationbetween different countries (from 1% to 20% of explained variance), presumably due todifferences in the systems of education. However, there is a general consensus that classroomeffects outweigh school effects. An issue that remains unclear is whether schools and classroomshave as much influence on motivational variables as on achievement. The aim of the present studywas to document the school- and the classroom-effect on the motivational profile, engagement andacademic achievement of students from the province of Quéêbec (Canada). Total sample includes3645 high school students (aged from 12 to 17 years old) nested in 175 classrooms (92 inLanguage Arts and 83 in Mathematics) from 24 schools. The data were analyzed using– 460 –