Secondary School Students’ Attitudes and Teacher-Student Views on Questioning in Mathematics Course

Abstract

One of the primary objectives of today’s teaching is to prioritize students’ thinking skills as a path to become lifelong learners. Those skills are improved by enabling students to learn actively. Role of teacher in the active learning environment is to facilitate students’ learning, and questions asked by students are important in the process. Based on the relevant considerations, this study aimed to identify questioning attitudes of secondary school students in mathematics courses and investigate their questioning behaviors in line with teacher and student views. The study utilized the partially mixed sequential equal status design. The study group was composed of 15 teachers working at five secondary schools in a city center of a rural province and 690 students. The data were collected through the Attitude Scale Toward Asking Questions, written view forms, semi-structured interviews, and observations. Exploratory statistical techniques were used to analyze quantitative data, and qualitative data were subjected to a content analysis. According to the results from anxiety about questioning subscale of Attitude Scale Toward Asking Questions, the students were anxious above moderate levels although they had high levels of questioning attitudes. Furthermore, it was concluded that number of questions asked by the students increased with higher grade levels, but they asked questions less frequently. In addition, it was determined that about half of the students refrained from asking questions, due to frustration and fear.