Page 64 - Children’s mathematical development and learning needs in perspective of teachers’ use of dynamic math interviews

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Chapter 2
math self-efficacy, or math anxiety is in contrast to the findings of previous research (Pajares & Kranzler, 1995; Ramirez et al., 2016). This led us to explore the results for low achievers in the present study, but the results of multilevel analyses showed no significant differences between this group of children and the total group of children.
Teacher factors
Just as for the child factors, we also found results contrary to what was expected for the influence of teacher factors on the children’s fourth- grade mathematical development. Although previous research has shown positive associations between mathematics teaching behavior and children’s mathematics achievement (e.g., Blazar, 2015; Reynolds & Muijs, 1999; Stronge et al., 2011; Van de Grift, 2007), we found only negative associations between mathematics teaching behavior and the children’s development (i.e., arithmetic fluency and mathematical problem-solving). This is in line with research that also found negative associations (Muijs & Reynolds, 2002).
This surprising negative influence of mathematics teaching behavior on children’s mathematical development might be due, at least in part, to the nature of elementary mathematics education in the Netherlands (Hickendorff et al., 2017). Elementary mathematics education in the Netherlands is characterized by a mixture of learning in contexts intended to encourage mathematical understanding and the practice of basic skills. Textbooks give teachers an important guideline for the identification and attainment of specific mathematical goals. This teaching has been shown to start out well in the Netherlands (Hickendorff et al., 2017), but also call for a dynamic classroom context. Different mathematics strengths, needs, and developmental pathways are encountered during elementary mathematics teaching and call for additional teacher competencies, such as the ability to adapting mathematics lessons and to conduct micro-interventions (Corno, 2008). Some teachers may simply not be able to respond effectively to the math learning needs of the children they are teaching. In older research, for example, Stipek et al. (2001) found teachers to believe that they should fully control instruction and focus primarily on the acquisition of the skills, rules, and procedures needed to achieve correct performance rather than being focused on spontaneous