My graduate research was sparked by my interest in the development of attitudes towards mathematics. In a nutshell, I noticed that parents were often quick to dismiss their children’s struggles with understanding math because of their own experiences in school. Many times I heard them say that they didn’t expect much from their children because they had never been good at math themselves. These interactions with parents made me wonder if there was a connection between a parent’s attitude toward math and how well the child of that parent performed in math. Ask any teacher this question and they will probably say that it is obvious the two are connected, but I wanted to prove this was true and see what the underlying causes of this relationship might be.
There were some limitations to my study…small and self-selected sample, varying numbers of participants across comparison groups, aggregate results instead of pairing parent with child…and I would have done things a bit differently if I had more than a semester to complete the project, but the results seem to indicate what teachers have been saying all along. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. Or, as my good friend and former colleague used to say, “If you want beans, plant beans.”
Through a simple survey, I asked students and parents to rate their views on a variety of factors that influence attitude toward mathematics. Things such as liking math, using math, persevering in solving problems, math ability, anxiety about math, among others. What I found throughout is that student attitudes toward math are pretty similar to those of their parents. One notable exception, however, was that children describe their parents as being good at math more often than those parents describe this quality in themselves. For my study, this meant that how well students think they understand math is more closely related to how they view their parents’ abilities instead of how parents view themselves. For most of the other areas addressed by these surveys, the student results mirrored those of the parents.
As part of the parent survey, I asked what kinds of resources were needed in order for them to feel like they could help their children with math and better understand the math being taught in schools. Nearly three-fourths of the respondents indicated they would like some kind of newsletter with activities they could do at home and online resources, specifically a website or blog containing links to activities and quality math practice websites. About forty percent said they would like a class for parents to help them learn the math themselves and learn how to help their children.
These parent results are the inspiration for A Pocketful of Pi. My vision is that it will become a place where all of this can happen. A place for parents to send their children when they need some extra practice. A place for parents to come to learn about the math their children are learning. A place for everyone to get information that just might change the way they look at math. My goal here is to show people that math isn’t the bad guy. It’s all in how you look at it.