Abstract:

A number of studies are currently devoted to the issue of teaching mathematics to show how to improve the quality of teaching mathematics and how to improve pupils' attitudes towards mathematics. The results of these studies are regularly published in journals focusing on new pedagogical trends in mathematics education. This article describes the course and results of an experiment aimed at demonstrating the benefits of teaching mathematics through scientific research approaches in the Czech secondary school. It describes the results of pupils who were taught by the experimental method, compared with the results of pupils who were taught in a classical way. The results are discussed here, too. The article tries to prove whether mathematics can be taught entirely by scientific research methods or whether the classical approach to teaching is irreplaceable. The results of the experiment presented in the article show that the classical teaching method, where the teacher transmits new knowledge to pupils, is irreplaceable and that the experimental teaching methods can only complement the classical teaching method.

Keywords:

Research method, problem, experiment, statistics, hypothesis, heuristics.