Prendergast, M., O’Meara, N., O’Hara, C. & Harbison, L

British Educational Research Association Conference.

Addressing the Transition from Primary to Secondary Mathematics Education in Ireland.

Leeds

Non Refereed Paper/Abstract

2016

()

13-SEP-16

15-SEP-16

The transition from primary to secondary mathematics education is an important issue given this is the time that many students begin to develop negative attitudes towards the subject (Ashton, 2008; Bicknell, 2009). In Ireland one of the main reasons for this is the lack of coherence between the teaching and learning of the subject at both levels. The recent nationwide reform of the Irish secondary school mathematics curriculum sought to address this issue by aligning the two syllabi more closely. However little has been done to bring into line the teaching and learning methods that students experience at both levels and to investigate other issues that affect the transition such as non-specialist mathematics teachers at primary level. Thus the main aim of this paper is to investigate issues surrounding the transition from primary to secondary mathematics education in Irish schools. The key objectives are to: Analyse teachers’ opinions on why students begin to develop negative attitudes towards mathematics at the transition stage from primary to secondary school. • Establish primary and secondary mathematics teachers’ levels of awareness of each other’s curriculums at the key transition stages of both 6th class and 1st year. • Determine how prepared both sets of teachers feel students are for 1st year mathematics when they leave primary / enter secondary school. • Examine the possibilities of creating links to enhance knowledge exchange between primary and secondary feeder schools and their respective mathematics departments. • The methodology involved the distribution of questionnaires to a stratified sample of both primary and secondary mathematics teachers around Ireland. These questionnaires comprised of a mixture of closed and open ended questions, which gathered a variety of quantitative and qualitative data. They provided the opportunity for teachers at both levels to offer their opinions on the issues surrounding the transition from primary to secondary mathematics. These findings will be discussed in detail in the conference paper.