Understanding Turkish students' mathematical identity: Mathematics achievement, beliefs, attitudes and motivation

Hakan Ulum; Hakan Ulum

doi:10.3934/steme.2025005

STEM Education

2025, Volume 5, Issue 1: 89-108. doi: 10.3934/steme.2025005

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Understanding Turkish students' mathematical identity: Mathematics achievement, beliefs, attitudes and motivation

Hakan Ulum ^,

Necmettin Erbakan University, Türkiye

Academic Editor: Muhammad Younas

Received: 19 August 2024 Revised: 04 November 2024 Accepted: 15 November 2024 Published: 02 January 2025

Understanding mathematical identity is critical, thereby reflecting a student's relationship with mathematics and their academic performance. Gender, socioeconomic status, family education level, and personal beliefs may contribute to shaping this identity, especially in non-Western countries such as Turkey. This study aims to investigate the role of gender, socioeconomic status, family education level, mathematics achievement, mathematical beliefs, attitudes towards mathematics, and mathematics motivation as predictors of mathematical identity among Turkish elementary school students. The study, which employed a survey research design, involved 520 elementary school students. Data were collected through five instruments, including a self-description form and a demographic questionnaire. The data were analyzed using multiple regression analyses to explore relationships between the variables. The results revealed that the father's education level, mathematical beliefs, attitudes towards mathematics, and motivation for mathematics significantly predicted the mathematical identity. However, gender, socioeconomic status, maternal education level, and mathematics achievement did not considerably affect the mathematical identity. These findings suggest that intrinsic factors such as beliefs and motivation play a more substantial role in the development of mathematical identity than demographic factors. The study highlights the importance of fostering positive mathematical attitudes and motivation to strengthen a student's mathematical identity. Further research should examine the underlying mechanisms between these predictors and mathematical identity, thereby considering cross-cultural comparisons and longitudinal data to understand how these relationships evolve.
- mathematical Identity,
- achievement,
- beliefs,
- attitude,
- motivation
Citation: Hakan Ulum. Understanding Turkish students' mathematical identity: Mathematics achievement, beliefs, attitudes and motivation[J]. STEM Education, 2025, 5(1): 89-108. doi: 10.3934/steme.2025005

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Abstract

Understanding mathematical identity is critical, thereby reflecting a student's relationship with mathematics and their academic performance. Gender, socioeconomic status, family education level, and personal beliefs may contribute to shaping this identity, especially in non-Western countries such as Turkey. This study aims to investigate the role of gender, socioeconomic status, family education level, mathematics achievement, mathematical beliefs, attitudes towards mathematics, and mathematics motivation as predictors of mathematical identity among Turkish elementary school students. The study, which employed a survey research design, involved 520 elementary school students. Data were collected through five instruments, including a self-description form and a demographic questionnaire. The data were analyzed using multiple regression analyses to explore relationships between the variables. The results revealed that the father's education level, mathematical beliefs, attitudes towards mathematics, and motivation for mathematics significantly predicted the mathematical identity. However, gender, socioeconomic status, maternal education level, and mathematics achievement did not considerably affect the mathematical identity. These findings suggest that intrinsic factors such as beliefs and motivation play a more substantial role in the development of mathematical identity than demographic factors. The study highlights the importance of fostering positive mathematical attitudes and motivation to strengthen a student's mathematical identity. Further research should examine the underlying mechanisms between these predictors and mathematical identity, thereby considering cross-cultural comparisons and longitudinal data to understand how these relationships evolve.

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Author's biography Dr. Hakan Ulum is a faculty member at Necmettin Erbakan University, Department of Elementary Education. He received his PhD from Çukurova University, Department of Elementary Education. He previously worked as a classroom teacher in the Ministry of National Education. Dr Ulum has participated in many international conferences on mathematics education in countries such as Poland and Azerbaijan as a speaker, moderated discussions and organised events. He also works as an editor in DOAJ-indexed and international journals. His research focuses on various topics such as mathematics education, primary school teacher training, educational technology, and meta-analysis. He has published many articles in journals indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index. He has also refereed many articles in this index

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