Critical Reflection in Teaching and Learning Mathematics towards Perspective Transformation: Practices in Public and Private Schools

Abstract

The study investigated the practices in critical reflection being employed in teaching and learning mathematics in public and private schools for students to achieve perspective transformation in psychological, convictional and behavioral dimensions. There were 1,969 senior high school and college student-respondents selected at random from 33 schools. Process reflection was most commonly practiced in both public and private schools. Convictional dimension of perspective transformation was most frequently achieved. There was no significant difference in practices of process reflection between senior high school and college students. However, there was significant difference in perspective transformation in behavioral dimension achieved by students from public and private schools. Also, there were significant differences in psychological, convictional and behavioral dimensions of perspective transformation achieved by senior high school and college students. There was high and significant relationship between critical reflection practices and perspective transformation of students. The researcher concluded that there were teaching strategies like discovery learning that facilitated critical reflection, and that there were learning activities like technology-based problem solving that altered students’ perspective of mathematics as an abstract field. The researcher further concluded that consistent use of appropriate teaching and learning activities could bring about perspective transformation in students with success.