Date of Award

2008

Degree Type

Dissertation

Department

Education and Human Services

First Advisor

Bagaka's, Joshua

Subject Headings

Mathematics -- Study and teaching, Academic achievement, Mathematics self-eficacy, Teacher practices

Abstract

The recent push for accountability based on student achievement, by means of standardized testing, has resulted in the realization that urban students are not performing as well as their suburban counterparts. This gap is even more pronounced in the area of mathematics. Many factors contribute to poor performance on student achievement. Among these are family values and climate, school environment, peer pressure, and test-taking anxiety. A student's judgment of their capability to accomplish a task or succeed in an activity, or self-efficacy, is a key factor. Self-efficacy beliefs help determine how much effort a student will expend and how much stress and anxiety they will experience as they engage on a task. Teacher efficacy beliefs, a teacher's perception of how effectively they can affect student learning, have also been found to have a great impact on the self-efficacy, and therefore the achievement, of their students. The purpose of the study was to investigate the link between teacher practices, their self-efficacy, and their students' mathematics self-efficacy. Teachers, and their students, from several school districts in northeastern Ohio participated in the study. Teachers responded to modified versions of Pajares' (1996) self-efficacy survey and their students responded to a different version of the survey. Participants included 582 students nested within 30 classrooms. The factor analysis identified five dimensions of students' and four dimensions of teachers' mathematics self-efficacy. A two-level hierarchical linear model revealed that teachers' perceived mathematics competency, their ability to engage students, flexibility, teacher gender, and years of teaching experience were significant predictors of all five dimensions of students' mathematics self-efficacy. The study recommends regular professional development activities to help teachers implement teacher practices that can positively impact students' mathematics self-efficacy. Through enhancing students' mathematics self-efficacy, students'

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