Abstract:

It is well known that 'something called "attitude" plays a crucial role in learning mathematics’ (Neale, 1969). If the attitudes are learned predispositions or tendencies, the role of parents and teachers becomes very important. The aim of this research was to examine agreement in attitude and belief by three relations: parent with their child, student with their teacher and parent with class teacher of their child. The research was conducted among 223 third- and five-grade elementary students, the same number of their parents and 15 teachers of this group of students. Special attention is given to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) indices. Detailed results on attitudes and beliefs regarding each of the participants are given. Results for parents are of special importance since research literature results cover quite well only first two groups (students and elementary teachers’ beliefs). Parents’ estimation of their children's answers shows high rate of agreement what does not hold for in-service elementary teachers. It seems that for teachers social agreeableness in answers was more important than tuning in with their students. The differences between teachers and parents in tuning with students/children are even greater. In Slovenia the relation parent school is in crisis, because parents interfere to much in professional teachers decisions. Questionnaire consists of three types of statements: attitude, beliefs and myths. The agreement rates are the highest at attitudes area and the lowest at area of myths, what could be predicted because of different knowledge bases (i.e. teachers are more aware of sex biases). Results show some significant differences according to age and sex. Differences in tuning by age are sensible, but sex differences show that equity principle is not emphasized enough in Slovenian schools. At the end some practical guidelines for school practice are given and open problems are listed.

Keywords:

Mathematics education, attitude, belief, parent.