Abstract

This thesis discusses a study of Malawian teachers’ beliefs about the nature of mathematics, its teaching and learning. A questionnaire adapted from Beswick (2005) with 26 Likert Scale items was distributed to 65 secondary mathematics teachers. Cluster analysis was employed and three clusters of teachers with similar views of mathematics emerged from the data. These three clusters of teachers were named (i) flexible problem solvers, (ii) content understanding, and (iii) teaching for performance clusters. The flexible problem solvers portrayed beliefs about problem solving especially in giving learner autonomy. The flexible problem solvers belief in problem solving faced obstacles when the curriculum prescription surfaced while the content understanding cluster was only concerned about coverage of all topics with accommodation of ideas from fast learners and ignoring slow learners’ ideas. The teaching for performance cluster’s beliefs were skewed to teacher centred approaches. As compared to the results found by Beswick (2005) in a study conducted in Australia, the results found in this study registered a slight difference. The teachers in the Malawian context showed traits of restriction by the curriculum in their responses unlike the Australian teachers who were not necessarily concerned about coverage of topics. These differences suggested that the context of the teachers’ task is what determined their responses. Teachers from the study by Beswick (2005) and this study shared their views in most of the items which had no relationship with the curriculum and had a strong diversion of views for those items that had a direct link with curriculum delivery and time.

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School	: School of Education
Issued Date	: 2019

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