Evaluating Social Psychological Approaches to Intervention in Mathematics Education

There are two broad categories of approach when intervening to support maths learning.

One approach targets performance directly, through changes to the quantity and quality of instruction received.

Another targets performance indirectly, through supporting the improvement of social-psychological variables, for example attitudes, anxiety and self-efficacy.

This thesis explores the overarching question 'how best to intervene to support students' maths learning?'

It does this primarily by evaluating the use of social-psychological intervention in maths learning contexts.

In a systematic review the efficacy of interventions that target social-psychological variables so as to improve performance in maths and science, is evaluated.

Analysing information from 12 studies, it finds a mixed picture with regards to the efficacy of social-psychological intervention.

These interventions had no or negligible effect on overall student performance, however they were in most cases effective for specific subgroups within sample populations.

The empirical paper uses a mixed methods design to look at the efficacy of, and experience of teachers delivering an instructional intervention, Precision Teaching, and a social-psychological intervention, affirmations and process praise.

The quantitative analysis uses descriptive statistics and Mixed ANOVA to evaluate changes in three measures (performance, anxiety and attitudes in maths) across three times (pre, post and six months following on from, intervention).

A majority of children in the Precision Teaching condition improved their performance and had lower anxiety by the end of the intervention, their self-reported attitude to maths did not improve.

Children in the affirmations and process praise condition improved in performance and anxiety over the course of the intervention, however this improvement was not significantly different to the progress made by a no intervention control group.

Transcribed interviews with teachers of each of the four participating classrooms were explored through Thematic Analysis.

This generated seven overarching themes (Child Ownership, Celebrating, Conflicting Demands, Feeling Helpless, Establishing Habits, Individual Stories, Impact on Personal Practice).

The apparent discrepancy between changes in child variables as experienced by teachers and measured by tests and questionnaires is discussed further.