Why Mathematics Is Valuable for Turkish, Turkish Immigrant and German Students? A Cross-Cultural Study

Abstract

This study investigated students' views regarding the value of mathematics. It reports on a smaller part of findings from a wider comparative study concerning student values of mathematics and mathematics education that belonged to Turkish students in Turkey, Turkish immigrant students in Germany, and German students in Germany. Students were in Grade 9 (14-15 years old) and the data was gathered through semi-structured interviews, and analyzed using the constant comparative method. The results revealed four major value categories for Turkish (practice, relevance, rationalism, and fun values) and German (relevance, fun, rationalism, and consolidating values) students while there were three major value categories for the immigrant students (relevance, rationalism, and communication). Keywords Cross-cultural study • Turkish students • German students • Turkish immigrant students • Grade 9 students • Values • Mathematical values

Values Conveyed through Distance Education in Geometry Courses during COVID-19

“…This result shows that students still cannot give up traditional teaching methods, although ICT has been gradually incorporated into the day-to-day mathematics teaching and learning activities in educational settings in Turkey. Similarly, the results of a recent qualitative study of Dede (2019) with ninth-grade students were also partially like those of Dede and Barkatsas (2019). Accordingly, the students' mathematics values are gathered in four main categories: practice, relevance, rationalism, and fun.…”

“…Semantic content analysis is the process of creating subcategories to detect themes in a text or phenomenon (Tavşancıl & Aslan, 2001). In this sense, the EBA contents reviewed were analysed based on the values and value signals that emerged in the literature (for example, Bishop, 1988;Dede, 2012Dede, , 2015Dede, , 2019Dede & Barkatsas, 2019;Lim & Ernest, 1997;Seah, 1999Seah, , 2011. As mentioned above, the general educational values have not been analysed in the current study since they do not directly affect students' mathematics achievement (Seah et al, 2017).…”

“…On the other hand, the study conducted to determine students' values in face-toface education revealed that Grade 9 students in Turkey gave more importance to objectism, openness, and progress values than complementary pairs (Dede, 2019). Accordingly, it is understood that the objectism and openness values conveyed in lessons through distance education coincide with the values conveyed to students by face-to-face education, and the rationalism value does not.…”

“…The MEB is responsible for compulsory education in Turkey, and compulsory education in Turkey is free and lasts for 12 years. The education system of Turkey is based on an examination-oriented education (Dede, 2019), and students continue their education careers based on the results of high-stakes examinations with multiple choice conducted at the end of middle and high schools. This naturally causes a lot of pressure on the students.…”

Feeling Good and Functioning Well in Mathematics Education: Exploring Students’ Conceptions of Mathematical Well-Being and Values

“…Values vary substantially by country and cultural characteristics. For example, a study of Swedish students suggested that accomplishment and cognitive factors (e.g., knowing the 6 ECNU Review of Education timetables and mathematical understanding) and teacher support were most important (Andersson et al, 2019;Ö sterling et al, 2015), whereas German and Turkish students valued mathematical accomplishment (e.g., test preparation/performance), meaningful learning (e.g., real-world applications, future career, and applicability), engaging mathematics lessons (e.g., puzzles/games), and mathematical understanding and skills (Dede, 2019). In Ghana, students reported valuing accomplishment (e.g., mastery, achievement, and accuracy), meaning (e.g., relevance), mathematical cognitions (e.g., mathematical strategies and fluency), and technology (e.g., calculators).…”