Page 160 - Children’s mathematical development and learning needs in perspective of teachers’ use of dynamic math interviews

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Chapter 5
solving; children’s mathematics experiences, beliefs, and emotions; and active involvement of children in the identification of their mathematical learning needs. Fourteen teachers (73.7 %) showed adequate responding (≥ 3), 16 teachers (84.2 %) created an adequate safe and stimulating climate (≥ 3). Eight teachers (42.1 %) summarized mathematical learning needs to an adequate extent (≥ 3). The most frequently provided support was verbal support: 17 teachers (89.5%) provided verbal support more than four times during the dynamic math interview.
With regard to the range of teacher performance in the dynamic math interviews, six teachers (31.6%) showed a high degree of attention to child’s math thinking and problem-solving, on the one hand, and active involvement of children in the identification of their math learning needs, on the other hand (> 20% of all questions). The latter is also reflected in the extent of identified and explicitly verbalized math learning needs: a larger number of needs (range 6-11) was cited in the dynamic math interviews of teachers 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 15. In the other dynamic math interviews, teacher 3 mentioned only one child need; 16 two needs; and 19 no needs. See also Figure 3 and some examples of dynamic math interviews in Appendix D.
The qualitative analyses and criteria described in Figure 2 show adequate dynamic math interviews for teachers 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, and 12. A good balance was found in the types of questions posed (aspects 1-5); a wide range of topics was addressed (aspect 10); and adequate support and responding was given (aspects 6 and 7). A safe and stimulating learning climate was created (aspect 8). A summary of the child’s math learning needs was supplied (aspect 9). In these dynamic math interviews, various aspects of a child’s mathematical development were addressed by adequate teacher-child interaction with the aim to identify child’s math learning needs. Positive associations were found for all aspects of child 2 (C2) mathematical development, for all aspects except reduction of math anxiety (C5), all aspects except self-efficacy and math anxiety (C8), all except self-efficacy and self-concept (C10 and C11), all except self-efficacy, self-concept, and math anxiety (C12).
Four the aforementioned teachers (2, 5, 11, 12) showed high scores for actual mathematics teaching behavior (> 3) on both measurement