David Mogari

An in-service programme for introducing an ethno-mathematical approach to mathematics teachers

Abstract The article profiles an in-service programme used to introduce a group of 22 high school mathematics teachers to an ethno-mathematical approach. The programme was built on an ongoing district-wide teacher development initiative organized and facilitated by the mathematics district official on a monthly basis. The programme took place over six months and consisted of three workshops, monthly cluster meetings and classroom visits. All the activities were carried out by various mathematics education practitioners. The results showed the varying degrees of impact of the in-service programme on the teachers.

Gender differences in the learners' learning of properties of a rectangle

Abstract The study examined the difference in performance of boys and girls in solving problems on the properties of a rectangle. The conceptual framework of the study was based on the idea that teaching the learners content in a familiar context tends to facilitate geometry learning. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews with the teachers and a mixed-gender purposeful sample of their learners and statistical techniques involving the use of t-test to compare the percentage mean scores of the gender groups. The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference in the achievement tests scores across the gender groups with boys scoring higher and that the difference seems to be due to the manifestation of cultural stereotypes in class.

Exploring the Psychometric Properties of an Instrument Developed to Measure Students' Views of Effective Mathematics Teaching at High School

Abstract The study reports the development of an instrument on the views about Mathematics Teachers’ effectiveness. Following recommendations from literature on developing instruments, 186 items were initially compiled. This was eventually reduced to a 30-item instrument. The internal consistency of scores from the accepted instrument yielded an alpha value of 0.95. Based on this value reliability was acceptable. Construct validity was established through principal components analysis which yielded acceptable internal consistency alpha values for a six-factor solution. It is concluded that for a newly developed instrument, the results reported in this study are promising. The study recommends that the instrument should be administered in different contexts in order to consolidate and verify the psychometric properties reported here. Following the different studies, confirmatory analyses should then be computed.