Attitudes toward mathematics of prospective primary teachers at Cumberland College who have completed a mathematics methods course as compared to those who have completed a first concepts course

This study investigated the attitudes toward mathematics of prospective primary teachers who had completed two mathematics concepts courses and a methods course as compared to those who had completed only a first mathematics concepts course.

Two groups took part in the study. The Concepts Group (CG) consisted of twenty prospective primary teachers (K-4) at Cumberland College, Williamsburg, Kentucky, who were enrolled in MTH 130, the first of two required mathematics concepts courses, during the fall semester of 1994. The second group was the Methods Group (MG) which consisted of twenty-four prospective primary teachers at Cumberland College enrolled in a required mathematics methods course, ELE 332, during the same semester.

At the onset of the semester, the Aiken-Dreger Math Attitude Scale (MAS) and the Appalachia Educational Laboratory Mathematics Attitude Scale (AEL) were administered as pretests. The MAS was administered as a posttest at the end of the semester.

ACT Math Scores and ACT Composite Scores were used to show that the two groups were comparable academically at the onset of the study. The correlation for the MAS and the AEL for group CG was found to be 0.895, for group MG it was 0.913 and for combined groups CG and MG, it was 0.911.

All hypotheses were tested at the 0.05 level of significance. The major findings were:1. The Methods Group, who had already completed the two prerequisite concepts courses, entered the semester with significantly more positive attitudes toward mathematics than the Concepts Group.2. While the pretest scores on the MAS for the Methods Group were higher than the posttest scores on the MAS for the Concepts Group, they were not significantly higher.3. The Concepts Group showed a significant increase in the positive direction of attitudes toward mathematics by the end of the semester.4. The Methods Group showed a significant decline in attitudes toward mathematics by the end of the semester.5. While the posttest scores on the MAS for the Methods Group were higher than those for the Concepts Group, the difference was not significant.6. The MAS and the AEL serve equally well in measuring attitudes toward mathematics.