Characteristics of junior high school teachers' beliefs in developing students' numeracy skills through ethnomathematics-based numeracy learning

Abstract

The teachers’ beliefs in ethnomathematics-based numeracy learning are a crucial element to be able to develop students' numeracy skills. The teachers’ beliefs in developing students' numeracy skills through ethnomathematics-based numeracy learning is a teacher's personal view about certain practices that are considered correct, which include four dimensions. The first dimension is the teachers’ beliefs about numeracy. The second dimension is teachers’ beliefs about the role of ethnomathematics in learning numeracy. The third dimension is teachers’ beliefs about ethnomathematics-based numeracy teaching. The fourth dimension is teachers’ beliefs about ethnomathematics-based numeracy learning. This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of teachers' beliefs in developing students' numeracy skills through ethnomathematics-based numeracy learning. The teacher's response was acquired through the completion of a questionnaire. The findings indicated that most teachers believed fostering students' numeracy skills could be achieved by implementing ethnomathematics-based numeracy learning inside the semi-realistic-mechanistic (SRM) categories. Further analysis reveals that more extended teaching experience may mean something other than that a teacher has a realistically oriented outlook. Teachers with teaching experience of fewer than five years (new teachers) and 5 to 10 years (junior teachers’) have a semi-realistic-mechanistic (SRM) view. Most teachers with more than 10 to 15 years (semi-senior-teachers) of teaching experience have a dominant realistic (DR) idea. In contrast, teachers with more than 15 years (senior teachers) of teaching experience have a semi-realistic-mechanistic (SRM) view and a dominant realistic (DR) view. Teachers’ positive beliefs will likely improve students' numeracy skills in general and based on teaching experience in the dominant realistic (DR) and realistic (R) categories regarding ethnomathematics-based numeracy learning.

Keywords

• teachers' beliefs
• numeracy skills
• ethnomathematics