Nahid Honarmand; Alireza Kiamanesh; Abdolazim Karimi
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to review the changes in the role of demographic and personality variables of mathematics teachers in predicting the mathematical progress of eighth-grade students in Iran and analyzed the trend of these variables in four international studies. For this purpose, we examined ...
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The purpose of this study was to review the changes in the role of demographic and personality variables of mathematics teachers in predicting the mathematical progress of eighth-grade students in Iran and analyzed the trend of these variables in four international studies. For this purpose, we examined the data from 21434 eighth graders and 877 math teachers who had participated in four TIMSS studies (2003, 2007, 2011 & 2015). Among the educational variables influencing the educational development, ten variables including gender, age, history of teaching, the degree, major, teaching hours, job satisfaction, confidence, interaction with other teachers and teaching method were investigated using statistical methods of Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis. The findings related to the demographic variables showed that the students ' mathematical performance changes were almost consonant with the changes of age, history of teaching, and teaching hours in both groups of male and female teachers. This coordination was not similar in the major and academic degrees. The results of multivariate regression showed that the students ' mathematical development was explained by the set of demographic and personality variables. Among these variables, teaching history and self - confidence of the teachers played the most important role in explaining the students ' progress, and the variables of the degree of education and gender did not contribute to the explanation of the students ' math’s progress. The findings show the necessity of paying more attention to the history of teaching and examining the reasons why major and teachers ' degree were not that influential in math development is essential.
Mohammad Sharifi; Jalil Fathabadi; Abdolazim Karimi; Masoud Sharifi
Abstract
The present study, conducted in Timss 2007 framework, aimed to examine the effectiveness of teachingcritical thinking on students’ academic achievement in mathematics and science. Research design was Quasi-experimental. Research sample (With available sampling method) included two classes of third ...
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The present study, conducted in Timss 2007 framework, aimed to examine the effectiveness of teachingcritical thinking on students’ academic achievement in mathematics and science. Research design was Quasi-experimental. Research sample (With available sampling method) included two classes of third grade students in Eghbal middle school in Baharestan, Tehran, Iran in 2014-15 randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Afterwards, the experimental group received critical thinking instructionfor 12 sessions, while the control group received no training during this period. The data were gathered using parallel forms of Timss 2007 framework, which were implemented in three periods. The data were analyzed through Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), and t-test. Results showed that critical thinking teaching could considerably improve students’ performance in mathematics and science in domains of reasoning and applying; however, no significant relationship was revealed between critical thinking teachingand students’ performance in the domain of knowing. Findings of the follow up test, in addition, indicated a significant decrease in applicants’ scores of the experimental group. It can be concluded that critical thinking teachingshould be brought into sharper focus in syllabuses of middle schools as its principles could not only resolve students’ problems in academic issues but they would also result in improving performance of students in the domains of mathematics and science.