A Survey Of High School Students’ Learning Approaches To Mathematics In Dongguan

The core idea of New Curriculum Reform is all for the students’ development. Its key goal is to help students develop practical abilities and a spirit of innovation. How can we achieve this goal and put theory into practice? The answer lies in the transformation of students’learning approaches.Australian educational psychologist John B. Biggs identified three different approaches to learning in students: surface，deep and achieving. Each approach is closely related to motive and strategy. Motives for learning determines approaches students engage in and outcomes while students’ strategies to learning help achieve them. So measures of approaches to learning will also measure students’ motives and strategies.To assess the students’ approaches to learning Maths，the Learning Process Questionnaire (LPQ)(Biggs，1993) was given to a total of600students of different levels from different high school in Dongguan city. The results of this survey show that students in different grades adopt different approaches to learning maths and their math grades are closely related to their learning approaches. Individual cases are also included to reflect relationship between motives，approaches and academic performance. Thus an conclusion was drawn that the improvement of students’ academic performance in maths means the transformation of their motives and strategies. Based on personal teaching practices，several suggestions are put forward in this article in an attempt to solve this problem.