This study aims to investigate the influences of conjecturing-inquiry teaching on commercial vocational high school students’ achievements and motivation toward mathematics learning. The quasi-experimental research with nonequivalent pretest-posttest control group design is adopted. There are thirty-nine students of each of the two groups, which are grade ten and taught by the same mathematics teacher from a public vocational high school in the middle of Taiwan. The conjecturing-inquiry teaching has been adopted in the experimental group for a whole academic year, while the traditional expository teaching in the control group. The instrument for examining students’ motivation toward mathematics learning is the “Students’ Motivation toward Mathematics Learning Questionnaire”, and for assessing students’ learning achievements the six school sectional examinations. The research results indicate that the students of the experimental group show significantly higher motivation toward mathematics learning than those of the control group. Although there is no significant difference between their learning achievements, the students of the experimental group have made steady progress in the six school sectional examinations during the whole academic year. Therefore, it seems to reveal that, under the conjecturing-inquiry teaching environment, students are more willing to get involved in their learning actively, to try different strategies to solve mathematics problems, to value the importance of mathematics learning, and to consider themselves as a learner of high selfefficacy under the goal of mastery. Besides, they are able to make steady progress in their mathematics learning as well.
|
Influences of conjecturing-inquiry teaching on commercial vocational high school students’ achievements and motivation towards mathematics learning
Download
