MOTIVATION AS AN ESSENTIAL FACTOR IN MATHEMATICS LEARNING Helena Campos & Vânia Moreira Departamento de Matemática Escola de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro CIDTFF-LabDCT Portugal

CONTENTS Introduction Intervening in motivation for learning; Research Guidance; Case study; Final remarks. H. Campos & V. Moreira

INTRODUCTION Motivation for learning and school success is fundamental, since all people in their lifetime set goals and goals for their lives, and these goals motivate them to continue ([1]) According to the Mathematics Program of Basic Education ([2]) mathematics appears as a primary factor in understanding most of the phenomena of the world in which we are inserted. They refer to the taste of learning math and discovering something new, to be achieved through mathematical reasoning and problem solving. In this way, mathematical concepts contribute as an incentive for the practice of a full, informed and responsible citizenship, constituting a cornerstone in the construction of the personality of the individual, as a member of a community. H. Campos & V. Moreira

INTRODUCTION In order to assess whether the tasks based on games that we idealized and built promoted the students' motivation for learning, it was implemented in the context of Supervised Teaching Practice (PES) in a class of the 3rd year of elementary school, a two-phase study. In the first place, we made available a Pre-test in which it was verified that the students are already motivated to learn the content or if the motivation was changed, taking into account that this was the first contact of the author with students of this level. H. Campos & V. Moreira

Motivation Motivation mobilizes a person or causes them to change direction, which influences success in a given task and, in the long run, in a specific domain of learning. Learning depends mainly on the individual being motivated, say [5] otherwise, he hardly learns or can never learn certain content. H. Campos & V. Moreira

Intrinsic Extrinsic The intrinsic motivation refers to that which comes from the individual himself, being under his control. The extrinsic motivation thus comes from an external stimulus, leading to the execution of a certain task with the objective of receiving reward or social recognition. H. Campos & V. Moreira

PARTICIPANTS IN MOTIVATION FOR LEARNING H. Campos & V. Moreira

Manipulable materials According to [15] are fundamental to help the child in the passage from the concrete to the abstract and appeal to several senses. H. Campos & V. Moreira

Games The game favors motivation and has implications in the learning process ([16]). H. Campos & V. Moreira

Research Problem As it was intended to measure the motivation of primary school students to learn mathematical concepts, a study was carried out, whose method of data collection was a questionnaire survey in two phases: a pre-test and a post-test. In this study, we chose a qualitative methodology with a case study design, which [18] states aims to know a well-defined entity and study a specific situation as a discipline, a person or another social unit. As a method of data collection a questionnaire survey was used, with 14 statements, in order to obtain the opinions of the participants in this study. This feature allows the collection of data, not by simple observation, but by questioning them, accessing your opinion. H. Campos & V. Moreira

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Figura 1- Likert scale with smiles This questionnaire was based on Likert scales, which consists of a set of items, from totally agreeing to fully disagreeing. Due to the children's age range, it was decided to replace this scale with the corresponding smiles, as can be seen in Figure 1. Figura 1- Likert scale with smiles H. Campos & V. Moreira

Analysis and discussion of results (pre-test) We will look at the issues that we find most pertinent. In the first statement "I think important mathematics" we wanted to understand if students are aware of the importance of mathematics, in fact 92.3% (24 out of 26) of children agree fully and 7.7% (2 out of 26) agree with this affirmation. In order to understand if the domain of Mathematics has really become important for children, we present the third statement "It is important to study mathematics". In this case we had consensus, since most of the children 92.3% (24 out of 26) fully agree. Children, whether they like it or not, show that at least they know the importance of this domain. In the last statement we wanted to find out if students liked that teachers use games to approach concepts. In fact, 96.2% (25 out of 26) fully agree with this statement. H. Campos & V. Moreira

Analysis and discussion of results (pos-test) In relation to the statement "I think important mathematics", the students present the same results in relation to the pre-test, which shows that they perceive the importance of this area, that is, 92.3% of the students fully agree with the statement. The most significant difference was the response to the statement "I feel discouraged when I do not understand what is explained in mathematics." In fact, in the first phase the results were varied 46.2% (12 out of 26) disagreed with the statement, whereas in the second phase only 19.2% (5 out of 26) disagree with the statement. Perhaps it can be justified by the fact that children attach more importance to mathematics, leading them to become more discouraged when they do not understand content. Finally, regarding the statement "I like the teacher to use games to teach mathematics", in the second phase we have 100% of the children to fully agree with this statement. H. Campos & V. Moreira

Final remarks The teacher it must be able to understand what it is to be an educator / teacher and how to improve teaching ([21]). In this work, special attention was given to how to improve teaching and make it more motivating for students, pretending to realize if games are a way to make children more motivated. We concluded, therefore, that the participants in this study were initially (pre-test) motivated, but after the implementation of the various tasks, mostly as didactic games, from the analysis and discussion of the results of the post-test that this motivation continued and was still developed more. H. Campos & V. Moreira

References H. Campos & V. Moreira

References