Abstract:

International evaluations and comparisons explicitly show the importance of mathematics. PISA and TIMSS results are used to measure evaluate and rank student’s capabilities in various subjects including mathematics, furthermore these studies and rankings are used by education policy makers to steer education in their individual nation states to improve performance and rankings in the next comparative studies, which adds to the importance of understanding the problems of students learning mathematics.

Resistance to mathematics learning, defined as a self constructed denial or unwillingness to learn mathematics caused by a contradiction to one’s sense of social order influenced by society, is a major part of the mathematics learning problem. A number of literatures are available on the subject but their explanations are based on a cognitive perspective or a social pragmatic view. This paper is an attempt towards a holistic approach towards understanding resistance to mathematics learning.

To gain a holistic view towards understanding resistance to mathematics learning, this paper starts by defining key concepts such as mathematics, barriers to learning, resistance and learning. Mathematics is defined as a representative body of conceptual, procedural and declarative knowledge and a discussion on the problems of mathematics as a discipline which essential creates the environment towards resistance to the discipline. Mathematics is discussed not only as a cognitive process or a social practice but a combination of both. Different views of understanding resistance to mathematics learning, particularly the constructivist view, information processing view, social environment view and touch a bit on a neurological factor resulting to resistance to mathematics.

Knud Ileris has created a comprehensive model towards a holistic way of understanding learning. His comprehensive learning model looks into the dynamics of an individual learner and explains that a learner is an interaction between 3 dimensions namely the cognitive, emotive and environment dimension. Using Ileris’ learning model, 3 dimensions of learning, as a basis, a model towards a holistic understanding resistance to mathematics learning is developed which is called the three dimensions of resistance to mathematics learning. The 3 dimensions of resistance to mathematics learning looks into three aspects of learning which are the cognitive dimension, emotional dimension and the environmental dimension of resistance and maps out various factors of resistance into the model. Understanding how the dynamics of resistance to mathematics learning can help teachers facilitate remedies towards the individual resistance in the subject, mathematics, and eventually lessen or rid the individual learner of such resistance.

Keywords:

learning, mathematics learning, resistance.