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Investigating Secondary Students Beliefs About Mathematical Problem-Solving, Mark Prendergast, Cormac Breen, Aibhin Bray, Fiona Faulkner, Brian Carroll, Dominic Quinn

Articles

Many studies over the past thirty years have highlighted the important role of students’ beliefs for successful problem solving in mathematics. Given the recent emphasis afforded to problem solving on the reformed Irish secondary school mathematics curriculum, the main aim of this study was to identify Irish students’ (n = 975) beliefs about the field. A quantitative measure of these beliefs was attained through the use of the Indiana Mathematical Belief Scale, an existing thirty item (five scale) self-report questionnaire. A statistical analysis of the data revealed that students who were further through their secondary education had a stronger belief …