Using Metaphor Analysis to Explore High School Students' Attitudes towards Learning Mathematics.

Introduction Mathematical literacy is an individual's capacity to understand the role of mathematics in the world and to apply mathematical thinking and mathematical decision-making processes to everyday problems. Today, almost every profession requires some level of mathematical thinking and employees are expected to solve novel problems, requiring reasoning ability rather than using mathematical skills. Yet, it is important to teach students concentrating in various branches mathematics effectively, as mathematical knowledge enhances everyday problem solving skills by establishing a cause and effect relationship. Students, however, often experience difficulty with mathematics, due to psychological factors such as disinterest in the subject, anxiety, fear or prejudice. Mathematics attitude Aiken (1970) defines attitude as a set of positive or negative pre-acquired emotions , opinions and behaviors towards an object, a fact, a concept or a person. Previous studies reveal a positive relationship between individuals' achievements and their attitudes towards a field in general and towards mathematics in particular (Akar, 1986; Chen & Stevenson, 1995; Ethington & Wolfe, 1986; Farooq & Shah, 2008; Ma, 1997; Utsumi & Mendes, 2000; Yenilmez, 2007). Ethington and Wolfle (1986), as well as Ma (1997) concluded that a positive attitude towards mathematics is highly correlated with success in mathematics. Ma (1997) conducted a study on 1200 high school seniors and reported that students with positive attitudes towards mathematics were highly successful in mathematics. Tocci and Engelhard's (1991) research indicated that students who are successful in mathematics have more positive attitudes towards mathematics and also believe in the usefulness of the field. A study conducted in Italy (Muzzatti & Agnoli, 2007) showed that as students progress from primary to secondary school, independent of gender, revising mathematics becomes more difficult. Six to seven year old female students, who have just started school considered themselves better than male students of the same age; however, that perception is reversed when they reach age 12-13. Furthermore, in a study conducted by Wilkins and Ma (2003), 3116 students were observed from 6th grade till 12th grade, and their attitudes towards mathematics showed a decline. The relationship of students' attitudes and parents' attitudes towards mathematics was researched by many. Even though most parents agree that mathematics is important, they think it is a difficult and boring subject, based on memorization of rules and techniques (Brown, Carpenter, Kouba, Lindquist, Silver, & Swafford, 1988; Cai, 2003; Cain-Caston, 1993; Gallagher & Kaufman, 2008). A survey of 1766 7th and 13th grade students showed that the factors which affect students' mathematics achievement are students' attitude towards mathematics, academic self-confidence and students' as well as parents' academic expectations (Wong, 1992). Similarly, Tocci and Engelhard's study revealed that parental support and perceived achievement reduce mathematics anxiety (Tocci & Engelhard, 1991). Minato and Kamada (1996) conducted a meta-analysis of 56 studies; Ma and Kishor (1997) reviewed 113 studies, concluding that mathematics attitude has a positive effect on mathematics success. Studies found that developing positive attitude towards mathematics and mathematics lessons is the key to success for students. Previous studies of students' mathematics attitudes generally used Liken scaled questionnaires or one-to-one interviews (Brandell & Staberg, 2008; Kloosterman, 2002; Ma & Kishor, 1997). The present study examined students' attitudes towards learning mathematics by examining the metaphors they created about learning mathematics. Definition of metaphor In their book titled "Metaphors We Live By", Lakoff and Johnson (1980) examined the usage of metaphor in daily language and in English literature. …