Developing students’ relationships with mathematics

Abstract

In this study we investigated how to support students’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness to develop their relationships with mathematics with respect to students’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, self-perception in relation to mathematics and math anxiety. There is a substantial amount of research that shows how negative relationships with mathematics affect students’ achievement. In this action research project, we followed an action research spiral. The model gave us the opportunity to plan, act and reflect in an ongoing cycle, which was important to us since we had four measurement points during the year and we repeated our investigation every year for three years. Addressing the research problem and studying the evidence presented, several conclusions can be made. It can be concluded that activities that support students’ basic psychological needs have an impact on their relationship with mathematics, which corresponds to earlier research findings. Additionally, this study provided further insights into the importance of a scaffolding teacher.