Grade Eleven Students' Mathematics Beliefs about Contexts Support in West Arsi Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

Students’ beliefs in mathematics education play an important role in students’ mathematics learning and achievement. Therefore, investigating students’ mathematics beliefs about context supports are essential in educational research. Accordingly, the purpose of this research was to investigate students’ mathematics beliefs about context support such as family context, social context, and school and classroom context about mathematics learning. To addressi this purpose, mixed-methods approach using a quantitative investigation followed by a qualitative investigation were employed. The participants were 545 students selected from four schools in West Arsi Zone using multistage sampling. The quantitative data obtained were analysed using percentage, mean, independent samples t-test, and ANOVA. The major findings were the students’ beliefs about contexts support and its components such as students’ beliefs about fathers’, mothers’, siblings’, peers’, teachers’, textbooks’ and schools’ support in learning mathematics denoted as medium level, which is neither positive nor negative. Regarding students’ beliefs about contexts support and its components, there were no significant differences with respect to gender; but there were significant differences with respect to achiever levels. In addition, there were significant differences between students’ beliefs about mothers’, fathers’, and peers’ support in learning mathematics in favor of students with parents are in urban; but no significant for others.