Exploring the relationship between teacher enjoyment of mathematics, their attitudes towards student struggle and instructional time amongst early years primary teachers

The Dominance of Blended Emotions: A Qualitative Study of Elementary Teachers’ Emotions Related to Mathematics Teaching

“…Research would suggest that these particular instructional strategies tend to be associated with high levels of enjoyment ( Stipek et al, 2001 ; Trigwell, 2012 ). In fact, Russo et al (2020) found that teacher-reported enjoyment of mathematics was strongly positively related to teachers’ attitudes toward productive struggle in mathematics. Aligning the results with Pekrun’s (2006) control-value theory of emotions, they explained that teachers who value mathematics teaching and experience a sense of control during teaching will experience high levels of enjoyment and as such will encourage students’ productive struggles.…”

“…In particular, teachers who expressed higher levels of enjoyment related to teaching tended to align their teaching with a more student-focused approach to teaching ( Stipek et al, 2001 ; Trigwell, 2012 ). Studies have also shown that teachers who have reasonable autonomy over their instructional time along with positive attitudes and emotions related to mathematics tended to spend more time in teaching mathematics ( Lee, 2005 ; Russo et al, 2020 ). In contrast, teachers who tended to describe negative emotions related to teaching had more transmissive and teacher-centered instructional approaches that were thought to ensure content delivery ( Trigwell, 2012 ) and tended to spend less time teaching math when possible ( Trice and Ogden, 1987 ).…”

“…In general, when teachers felt that they were not held in high regard by their students, this elicited negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, and nervousness. Teachers also experience negative emotions, such as frustration, related to students’ thinking, generally when students are disengaged, inattentive, fall behind, or are not making progress ( Reyna and Weiner, 2001 ; Russo et al, 2020 ). Both macro- and micro-contextual factors were also reasons of teachers experienced frustration and anger.…”

Indicators of middle school students' mathematics enjoyment and confidence

“…An educator's mathematics anxiety may have a powerful impact on their students' attitudes toward mathematics. The teachers' comfort level with math influences how they teach (Beilock & Willingham, 2014;Beswick, 2012;Boaler & Dweck, 2016;Haciomeroglu, 2017) and even how much time they spend teaching math (Russo et al, 2020). Teachers' confidence in teaching mathematics has been shown to be significantly associated with their students' confidence in learning mathematics (Mata et al, 2012;Mensah et al, 2013;Stipek et al, 2001).…”

Maths attitudes, school affect and teacher characteristics as predictors of maths attainment trajectories in primary and secondary education

“…In addition to the effects associated with a positive student–teacher relationship, teachers' own attitudes, self-efficacy beliefs and abilities can influence the development of students’ attitudes towards maths regarding gender stereotypes [ 58 ], and can affect students' attainment [ 58 , 59 ]. Teachers’ enjoyment of maths also affects the instructional time given to maths in that teachers who enjoy maths more spend more time engaging in maths tasks [ 60 ]. There is also some evidence to suggest teachers' general mental wellbeing is linked to students’ maths abilities through the quality of the classroom learning environment [ 61 ], and in the feedback given to students [ 62 ], which is particularly marked for low-achieving students.…”