College students' intrinsic motivation to learn mathematics and beliefs about the nature of mathematics in a mathematics course rich in socially relevant content

A common complaint from students enrolled in college mathematics courses typically preceding precalculus is that their courses are not meaningful or relevant to them. While there are many possible approaches to make mathematics more relevant to the learner, this study focused on the potential social relevance of mathematics. As the research literature suggests a fairly strong link between the relevance of course material and students' motivation to learn that material, it was believed that a before-precalculus college mathematics course rich in socially relevant content might enhance students' motivation to learn. One of the overall goals of this study was to learn more about the motivational characteristics of students enrolled in such courses. In addition, this study also investigated students' beliefs about the nature of mathematics and students' overall epistemological beliefs to determine if, and in what ways, they were related to students' motivation to learn mathematics.; This study focused primarily on a small group of eight students enrolled in a “liberal arts mathematics” course in a small, liberal arts college in the Northeast. Data consisted of a series of five hour-long interviews with each of the eight students, questionnaires given to all students in the course, and videotapes made of class sessions that focused on the eight students. The data suggest that there were three “types” of students present among the eight. One “type” believed that mathematics has both a practical and “general” usefulness, and that the purpose of studying mathematics is to make an attempt to understand its underlying concepts. Such students saw mathematics as involving reasoning and not primarily computation and memorization, and tended to exhibit more of an intrinsic motivation to learn mathematics. A second “type” believed that mathematics consists primarily of facts, algorithms, and computations. For these students, mathematical truths come from “the experts” and cannot be questioned; the role of the student is to imitate and reproduce this body of knowledge. These students also tended to exhibit more of an extrinsic motivation to learn mathematics. Finally, a third “type” perceived mathematics primarily as something important to learn for one's future, usually for one's chosen career. Since mathematics has a genuine importance, these students exhibit more of an intrinsic than extrinsic orientation toward learning mathematics; at the same time, mathematics is valued for its extrinsic, rather than intrinsic, importance. Students who were classified as the first “type” were the ones most likely to be positively influenced by the socially relevant character of the course. While there were fairly strong connections between motivation to learn and beliefs about mathematics, a student's overall epistemological beliefs were found to be essentially unrelated to these “types.”...