Data_Sheet_1_What do mathematics lessons look like? Analyses of primary students’ drawings.pdf

The use of student drawings to assess their experiences and beliefs about teaching and learning of mathematics has become almost a regular research method – especially when working with young students who may not express themselves well, for example, in self-report questionnaires. These methods, nevertheless, need to be improved regarding their objectivity and validity. By building on the existing research, in this study, we focus on objectivity and validity issues in drawing-based methods. We use a drawing-based instrument: Draw A Mathematics Classroom (DAMC) and present 104 fourth-grade students to draw a picture of their regular mathematics lessons. We especially aim to develop and validate a data coding manual with low-inferent categories; that is, well-operationalizable categories that can be used with high interrater-reliability like the presence of teachers, the arrangement of student desks, and teacher-student interactions. The results reveal that almost half of the participating students perceive their lessons as teacher-centered. The results also confirm the reliability and validity of the methodological approach. For example, in pictures where the teacher is depicted larger than the students, the teacher is also depicted in the center, and students are pictured working alone. Classroom observations support students’ perceptions, and all these show that the manual used in this study is useful to getting insights into young students’ perceptions of their mathematics classroom.

借助学生绘画作品评估其对数学教与学的体验与认知，已几乎成为一种常规研究方法——尤其适用于难以通过自我报告问卷等方式清晰表达自身想法的低龄学生群体。然而，此类方法在客观性与研究效度层面仍有待完善。本研究立足既有研究成果，聚焦绘画类研究方法的客观性与效度问题。本研究采用名为「绘制数学课堂」（Draw A Mathematics Classroom，DAMC）的绘画工具，招募104名四年级学生绘制其日常数学课堂的场景。本研究的核心目标之一是开发并验证一套采用低推断性类别的数据编码手册：即具备高评分者信度的强可操作性类别，例如教师出现情况、学生课桌布局以及师生互动等维度。研究结果显示，近半数参与学生认为其数学课堂以教师为中心。本研究的方法学框架的信度与效度亦得到验证。例如，在教师形象尺寸大于学生的画作中，教师往往也处于画面中心位置，且学生被描绘为独自学习。课堂观察结果也印证了学生的认知，上述所有证据均表明，本研究使用的编码手册可有效揭示低龄学生对其数学课堂的认知情况。