Investigation of Student and Teacher Characteristics Associated with Mathematics Achievement in the Transition to Secondary Education Exam

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine student and teacher characteristics related to students' mathematics achievement. The study group of this research composed of 1533 students who participated in the mathematics subtest of the transition from basic education to secondary education applied in 2016 and 36 mathematics teachers who teach these students. The data of the research are collected with the prepared student and teacher questionnaires. In the analysis of the data, the two-level hierarchical linear models is used. According to the results, the most important teacher characteristics related to students' mathematics achievement is the level of professional satisfaction of the teacher. In addition, teachers' seniority, main field education, classroom management skills have a significant and positive effect on mathematics achievement. Also, teachers' participation in professional development activities has a significant and negative effect on mathematics achievement, but this effect is small in practice. At the student level, the student's self-confidence in mathematics has the most important effect on the mathematics achievement. The variables of students' like learning mathematics and anxiety towards mathematics have negative and significant effects on mathematics achievement, but these effects are small in practice.

Keywords

• Mathematics achievement
• Secondary Education Transition Exams
• HLM
• teacher characteristics
• student characteristics

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