Grade 9 teachers’ perceptions of challenges learners faced in learning equations : a case study

Abstract: This study examined teachers’ perceptions of the nature and scope of the challenges Grade 9 learners faced in learning algebraic equations. This of great interest to mathematics education because mathematics teachers as implementers of curriculum, and what they believe, value or perceive as they work with learners in classrooms is important for staff development programs. Amongst others, Foucault’s (1979) view on the movement of knowledge from the teacher to the learner within the pedagogical relationships was drawn on to understand the teachers’ perceptions. Using a case study design, interviews were conducted with eight qualified and experienced Grade 9 Mathematics teachers and analysis made of learners’ workbooks. The argument is that how teachers taught and guided learners on the normative criteria that are crucial to equations influenced how they understood the subject-content. The opportunities that were created did not enable them to create their own meaning and to take control of what they were learning, hence the challenges could be related to the pedagogical approach used by teachers, overlooking rules and instrumental understanding they seemed to be promoting, nor did their feedback to the learners facilitate relational understanding. The teachers, however, did not see the challenges as embedded in themselves as facilitators of learning but rather in learners’ inability to understand mathematical aspects related to equations. In their view, these together with their behavioral tendencies towards the subject, language barrier, the abstract register in algebra, social and contextual barriers contributed to the challenges. The conclusion is that the way knowledge was conveyed by teachers as authority figures in the classroom influenced what learners could do and who they became as individuals in learning algebraic equations.M.Ed