Abstract
Through the interpretation of a set of data from a research study that investigated grade 5 and 6 students’ preferences among three types of mathematical tasks, this chapter presents an alternative way in which data might be interpreted. While it was found that across the areas of number and geometry, the three types of tasks were most preferred across different geographical locations, the values perspective demonstrated a remarkably consistent valuing of ‘challenge’, ‘easiness’ and ‘real life scenario’. It is proposed that this ‘rethinking’ into the way in which collected data might be analysed from the values perspective can potentially enrich our understanding of how we can better facilitate mathematics learning and teaching in schools.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
From the data shown in Table 4.6, the observed odds that ‘Chengdu students prefer Challenging tasks most, compared to Fun’ are 32.5/9.5 = 3.42. The ‘Chengdu students prefer Challenging tasks least compared to Fun’ ratio is 18.5/3.5 = 5.29. The ratio of these two odds, the odds ratio is 3.42/5.29 = 0.65. The log of the odds ratio, called the log odds ratio, is Ln (0.65) = − 0.43 (which is the top value highlighted in Table 4.6, second column, third row).
Note that the parameter estimates (log odds ratios) in SPSS (Tables 4.4 and 4.5) are logarithmic numbers and we have to take the exponential of the value in each cell in order to derive the odds ratios from the log odds ratios, i.e. in our case: e −0.43 = 0.65 (which is the highlighted value in the bracket, Table 4.4, 3rd column, 2nd row).
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Barkatsas, A., Seah, W. (2015). Learners’ Preferred Mathematical Task Types: The Values Perspective. In: Bishop, A., Tan, H., Barkatsas, T. (eds) Diversity in Mathematics Education. Mathematics Education Library. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05978-5_4
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