Why is it hard to engage students? Investigating epistemological theories underlying teaching and learning mathematics
| Pages | 41-53 |
| Date | 01 April 2011 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/20425945201100003 |
| Published date | 01 April 2011 |
| Author | Siham El‐Kafafi |
| Subject Matter | Public policy & environmental management |
Copyright © 2011 WASD 41
1 Senior Lecturer, Manukau Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand Email: siham.elkafafi@manukau.ac.nz
Why is it hard to engage students?
investigating epistemological
theories underlying teaching and
learning mathematics
World Journal of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2011
Siham El-KafaI
Manukau Institute of Technology, New Zeland
Abstract: There is a considerable emphasis today on bridging the gap between theory
and practice. On the other hand there is a divergence of thinking through a traditional
perspective that mathematics exists independently of its applications and should be
taught in its pure form. The purpose of this paper is to examine the key epistemological
theories underlying teaching and learning mathematics from above (i.e. traditional ap-
proaches) and mathematics from below (contemporary approaches) and how they relate
to adult numeracy education. This begs the question: Why is it hard to engage students
and why can’t we connect with both the real-world and mathematical abstractions?
Keywords: engaging students, adult learning, mathematics and numeracy.
introduction
Research indicates that mathematics,
writing, talking and listening are all
critically important skills required for
work, home and in the community en-
vironments (Howard, U. In Tett, Ham-
ilton & Hillier, 2006). Nevertheless,
there are differences between informal
mathematics in people’s everyday prac-
tice and school mathematics in formal
education. Wedge (2002) conducted a
study investigating these differences and
argued that these differences are one of
the reasons why adults don’t recognize
the informal mathematics in their ev-
eryday life as mathematics. On the oth-
er hand, numeracy has been defined by
Crowther as the mirror image of litera-
cy i.e. literacy and numeracy were seen
as personal attributes that were needed
to support the life-long aspirations of
an educated person and that included
communication between the so-called
two-cultures (in O’Donoghue, 2002,pp.
47-48).
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