Understanding the Identities, Emotions, Attitudes and Motivations of Developmental Mathematics Students in the Context of Their Prior Learning and Life Experiences

Abstract

Low achievement in mathematics begins long before students arrive at college. National data shows that between 60% and 75% of high school seniors in the U.S. are underprepared for college-level mathematics and may end up enrolling in developmental mathematics. Developmental mathematics refers to mathematics courses taken in college that are considered to be remedial, or below the level of college mathematics. These courses have the potential to provide educational access to those who have been underserved in their K-12 education. To help improve students’ outcomes in these classes, interventions have been proposed and implemented, but with limited success. I argue that the problem with these interventions is that the field knows very little about who developmental mathematics students are as math learners. This is because research on these students is limited and their voices are largely missing. Students bring more than knowledge of mathematics with them to their college classes. They bring memories of past experiences that continue to influence their learning. They also bring noncognitive aspects of learning such as identity, emotions, attitude and motivation, collectively referred to as mathematics-related affect. In this dissertation study, I use portraiture methodology to explore the memories of 10 developmental mathematics students to understand how their prior learning and life experiences shaped their relationships with mathematics. Data consisted of a background questionnaire and a one-on-one interview with each participant. I developed a framework to analyze my data that positions the narrative-identity framework of Sfard and Prusak (2005) at the center of mathematics-related affective characteristics as well as students’ life and learning experiences related to mathematics learning. I present my findings in the form of portraits of these four participants along with summaries of the other six. Each participant talked about each aspect of my framework. However, the data for each highlighted the importance of different aspects: the role of emotions in motivation for learning mathematics; the ways that one’s beliefs about the importance of math interact with identity; the relationship between motivation and attitude; and the way that environment impacts learning and influences all aspects of affect. I organize my findings around major themes that I noticed in my data. Perhaps the most important theme was participants’ development of strategies for self-protection. They described a variety of strategies they developed to protect themselves from harm usually in response to negative emotions such as anxiety. These strategies were sometimes misinterpreted by authority figures. In addition, I found ways that my participants were resilient and persistent, even as the literature on developmental mathematics often positions them as failures. My analysis also illustrates that a reciprocal relationship exists between each aspect of mathematics-related affect, as well as the importance of considering the environment in which these affective characteristics develop. Findings suggest that there are many ways that a students’ actions might be misunderstood by faculty and that it’s vital to consider students’ point of view when providing instruction and other resources. I discuss the implications these findings and my revised conceptual framework have for future research and teaching in developmental mathematics.