Creating Contexts for Involvement in Mathematics

Students' (21 girls, 21 boys) self-reports of involvement in mathematics were related to instructional strategies observed in their upper-elementary classrooms. Students in high involvement classrooms reported challenges and skills as above average and matched, whereas students in low involvement classrooms reported skills as exceeding challenges. Students in high involvement classrooms also reported significantly more positive affect. Discourse analyses of instruction in high involvement classrooms revealed that teachers scaffolded instruction (i.e., negotiated understanding, transferred responsibility, and fostered intrinsic motivation). Instruction in low involvement classrooms was characterized by Initiation-Response-Evaluation sequences, emphasis on procedures, and extrinsic motivation strategies. Results imply that involvement can be socially constructed through whole class instruction and that researchers should give more attention to measuring and understanding situated motivation.

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