Idealism as an educational philosophy of mathematics teachers in Al Ain City Schools of the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

Educational philosophy, in general, is at the heart of the growth of education. It outlines the institution’s goals, subject matters, teaching methods, roles of teachers as well as the role of students, assessment methods, and teaching/learning experiences. The study aimed to identify the educational philosophical implications of idealism in schools in Al Ain city of the United Arab Emirates from the perspectives of mathematics teachers. The researchers used a questionnaire with thirty-two Likert-type items as a quantitative method for data collection. The instrument was administered to a randomly selected sample of 82 (46 male and 36 female) mathematics teachers in Al Ain city. The data were analyzed in IBM SPSS version 28 for one sample t-tests and independent samples t-tests to compare teachers’ perceptions of curriculum, education values, school functions, roles of teachers, and teaching methods with gender and school type. Further analyses included a one-way ANOVA for teaching experiences and teaching cycles, bivariate correlations between the variables, and a generalized linear model to identify the significant predictors of the teaching method. The findings of the study showed that mathematics teachers in Al Ain city embrace an idealistic philosophy of curriculum, educational values, the role of schools and teachers, and teaching methods in general. The teachers’ perceptions of the curriculum and school functions were found to be significant predictors of their teaching methods. These findings have both pedagogical and curricular implications.