Research Proposal
Research Proposal
Darien Shannon
Background & Research Questions
This research concerns the topics of engagement and motivation. The contingent factor in any learning process is engagement. Without this key ingredient, no new knowledge can be learned. Students who disengage, or exhibit non-start behaviour, are handicapping themselves from the outset. Non-start behaviour is generally easy to identify. The student simply does not begin to interact with the task at hand; whether it involves taking notes, listening to a lesson, doing practice questions, or trying a problem solving task. In some cases, the student could be engaged in some other activity such as reading, doodling, talking to a friend, sleeping, or doing other work. It could be that the student isn’t doing anything, just appears to be lost in thought or staring out the window. In more extreme cases, the student may absent himself from the classroom.
The reasons for non-start behaviour could provide valuable knowledge in countering the debilitating situation. Identifying the socio-emotional orientations of students exhibiting non-start behaviour could provide educators with the knowledge necessary to encourage these students to engage in classroom tasks and activities. Hence, my research questions are:
What reasons do students give for their non-start behaviour? What are the underlying reasons for their disengagement? Using these reasons and behaviours can the socio-emotional orientations of the students be identified?
This study is designed to identify factors that influence students' non-start behaviour in mathematics class. After gathering data about students’ behaviours and subsequent explanations for their disengagement the data will be analysed and categorized according to a socio-emotional framework. This categorization will help to identify underlying reasons for students' non-start behaviour. Analysis of these reasons and orientations could provide insight into how to better motivate students to participate and engage in class activities.
Situating the Research Questions
A significant amount of research has explored the topic of engagement and motivation. Several frameworks exist for studying this phenomenon, some of which focus on the design of the task and some of which explore the nature of the student. It is argued that in order to design a task that is attractive and engaging it is first necessary to study and ascertain the nature of the student and his orientation toward learning.
Carol Dweck (2000) has studied the role of self-theories in a motivational context. She introduced two views of intelligence, entity and incremental. A student’s view of his own intelligence will determine his goal orientation; mastery or performance. A mastery goal orientation indicates that the student is motivated to understand and learn new skills. A student who holds a performance goal is more concerned with appearing competent and not looking dumb.
Marku Hannula (2005) uses a learning orientation model to describe students’ motivations. He states that “socio-emotional orientations (or types of coping) can be classified into three categories: task-orientation, socially dependent orientation, and ego-defensive orientation” (p.217). Students who embrace a task-orientation are intrinsically motivated to master the task at hand. A social-dependence orientation signifies that the student is motivated for social reasons and may seek help and approval from authority. Students with an ego-defensive orientation are focused on self-protection.
A current study by Way, Bobis, Anderson, and Martin (2008) exploring engagement and achievement in middle school mathematics claims that “to date, research has not established evidence-based connections between engagement and students’ achievement in mathematics, nor has it provided clear causes for disengagement…”. Knowing the learning orientation of a student is key to knowing what approach to use to counter non-start behaviour and engage the student in the learning process.
Methodology – data gathering and analysis
The initial part of this study involves observing secondary mathematics students (grades 8-12) in their normal classroom activities. The goal of this observation is to identify students who display non-start behaviour, that is, students who do not even begin to engage in the learning process. After this process, the chosen students would be approached and invited to participate in the research process. Students would be asked to participate in a one-on-one interview process centred on identifying their socio-emotional orientation and reasons for non-start behaviour. The interview questions would develop based on the given responses to a set of general initial questions regarding classroom participation and feelings towards mathematics. Once the data concerning the behaviour is obtained, a narrative research design would be utilized. “A narrative typically focuses on studying a single person, gathering data through the collection of stories, reporting individual experiences, and discussing the meaning of those experiences for the individual.” (Creswell, 2008) This will be achieved in the form of a mathematical autobiography, a method used extensively by Hannula and Kaasila (2005, 2008). The autobiography would be written from the student’s point of view and involve an analysis of his behaviour and reasoning for it using his socio-emotional orientation (as described by Hannula (2005)) as a basis but would be written by the researcher. The reasons that underlie non-start behaviour could be multi-varied and complex. Secondary school aged students can be expected to have difficulty verbalizing their reasoning for their behaviour and in many cases would be unable to identify and analyze the reasons. The first person biography would then be given to the student to read, comment on, and make changes if desired. This would authenticate the autobiography. The resulting document would be a much more detailed and accurate analysis of the behaviour and reasons for it than the student could ever provide on his own. Coding of the themes present in the select group of biographies would result in reasons for students’ non-start behaviour and could provide future researchers with groundwork for further research in examining how to counteract non-start behaviour.
Timeline
|Fall Semester 2008 |Spring Semester 2009 |Summer Semester 2009 |
|Data Collection | |
| |Data Analysis | |
| |Writing & Revision |
Bibliography
Ainley, J., Pratt, D., and Hansen, A. (2006). Connecting engagement and focus in pedagogic task design. British Education Research Journal 32(1), 23-38.
Creswell, J.W. (2008). Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research (3rd Edition). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Dweck, C.S. (2000). Self Theories: Their role in Motivation, Personality, and Development. Philadelphia: Psychology Press.
Hannula, M.S. (2002). Goal regulation: Needs, beliefs, and emotions. In A.D. Cockburn & E. Nardi (Eds.), Proc. 26th Conf of the Int. Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education 3, 73-80. Norwich, UK: PME.
Hannula, M.S. (2003). Fictionalising experiences – experiencing through fiction. For the Learning of Mathematics, 23(3), 33-39.
Hannula, M.S., Gomez-Chacon, I.M., Philippou, G., & Schloglmann, W. (2005). Affect and mathematical thinking: role of beliefs, emotions, and other affective factors. In M. Bosch (ed.) Proceedings of the 4th Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education. Sant Feliude Guíxois, Spain.
Hannula, M.S. (2006). Motivation in mathematics: Goals reflected in emotions. Educational Studies in Mathematics 63, 165-178.
Henningsen, M. and Stein, M.K. (1997). Mathematical tasks and student cognition: Classroom-based factors that support and inhibit high-level mathematical thinking and reasoning. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 28(5), 524-549.
Kaasila, R., Hannula, M.S., Laine, A., & Pehkonen, E. (2005). Autobiographical narratives, identity and view of mathematics. In M. Bosch (ed.) Proceedings of the 4th Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education. Sant Feliude Guíxois, Spain.
Kaasila, R. (2007). Using narrative inquiry for investigating the becoming of a mathematics teacher. ZDM, 39(3), 205-213. New York: Springer.
Kaasila, R., Hannula, M.S., Laine, A., & Pehkonen, E. (2008). Socio-emotional orientations and teacher change. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 67(2), 111-123.
Middleton, J.A. (1995). A study of intrinsic motivation in the mathematics classroom: A personal constructs approach. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 26(3), 254-279.
Sullivan, P., Tobias, S. and McDonough, A. (2006). Perhaps the decision of some students not to engage in learning mathematics in school is deliberate. Educational Studies in Mathematics 62, 81-99.
Walshaw, M. (2004). A powerful theory of active engagement. For the Learning of Mathematics, 24(3), 4-10.
Way, J., Bobis, J., Anderson, J., and Martin, A. (2008). Middle Years Transition, Engagement and Achievement in Mathematics: the Myteam Project. Research Reports – Proceedings of the 32nd International Conference for Psychology of Mathematics Education. Morelia, México.
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