A Survey Study On The Senior High School Students' Attitude Towards Mathematical Error Correction

In the process of educational practice,the author found that the status quo of high school students' mathematical error correction was not optimistic.It is well recognized that attitudes have a great effect on behaviors.Referring to some relevant literature,the author found that previous research studies have focused on the analysis or classification of the causes of mathematical errors and the analysis of the rationality of mathematical errors and their educational value.With the development of research on mathematical errors,more and more people have realized the value of mathematical errors in teaching and learning and continued to make use of it.However,there are only a few articles about systematic treatment of mathematical errors.Therefore,this study attempted to investigate senior high school students' attitudes towards mathematical error correction and their attitudinal characteristics.Combining some relevant literature and personal experience in educational practice,the author set up an elementary model about mathematical error correction.Later on,the author wrote the questionnaire items based on non-structured interviews with high school students and teachers as well as relevant literature,and then formed the initial questionnaire according to some experts' suggestions on adding or deleting items.During the pilot study,the author analyzed the survey data through item analysis and exploratory factor analysis,and thereby deleted the unsuitable items and formed the formal questionnaire.During the main study,the validity and reliability of the survey instrument were examined first,and the attitude model was then tested using confirmatory factor analysis.Following that,the author analyzed the valid survey data systematically to understand the current situation of high school students' attitude towards mathematical error correction in three dimensions: cognition,behavioral tendency and emotion.Lastly,the author examined the differences between groups of different gender,grade,and arts vs.science discipline.The research findings are as follows:Firstly,senior high school students had positive attitudes towards mathematical error correction in all the three dimensions: cognition,behavioral tendency,and emotion.Second,there was a significant difference in terms of cognition between female and male students.The cognitive level of girls was significantly higher than that of boys.Thirdly,in terms of behavioral tendency,gender and arts vs.science discipline had a significant interaction effect.And so did grade and arts vs.science discipline.Simple effect analysis showed that the arts girls had a higher level of tendency than arts boys.The senior school grade one science students had a higher level of tendency than the senior school grade two science students.And the senior school grade two arts students had a higher level of tendency than senior school grade two science students.Lastly,in the aspect of emotion,the interaction effect between gender and arts vs.science discipline was significant.So was that between grade and arts vs.science discipline.Simple effect analysis showed that the arts girls had a higher level of emotion than boys.The senior school grade one science students had a higher level of emotion than the senior school grade two science students.And the senior school grade two arts students had a higher level of emotion than senior school grade two science students.