Abstract:
This article builds on previous results of theTransmaths studies concerning transmissionist
teaching practicesçand especially adds the significance of students’ perceptions of
these practicesçin their association with students’ declining dispositions for studying
mathematics. It addresses a gap in this work, and the literature in general, regarding the relationship
between teachers’and students’ perceptions of pedagogy. Drawing on data analyses
from a recent, large survey of teaching and learning mathematics in secondary
schools, the article: (a) demonstrates and validates two new measures of perceptions of
transmissionist practices, as experienced from students’and teachers’ perspectives, (b) investigates
the comparability of these two measures, and (c) identifies their associations
with students’dispositions to study mathematics. Analysis draws on measures of students
in Years 7 to 11 (involving 13,000+ students) and from 132 of their mathematics teachers,
and shows low correlation at class level and negligible correlation at student level. Results
of regression analysis confirm previous work with older students, i.e. that teachers’ selfreported
transmissionism is negatively associated with learners’ dispositions, but adds
that students’ perceptions of transmissionism are much more strongly negatively associated
with these dispositions, and largely mediate the effect of teachers’ (self-reported)
transmissionism. Further, the differences between year groups and gender show how
girls and older learners suffer significantly larger negative effects. The article concludes
with a brief discussion of these complexities and some implications for students’ trajectories
and transitions into (and out of) mathematics
