Development of a questionnaire for understanding mathematics teachers' situated learning practices in the Philippines

Abstract

This study sought to understand Philippine mathematics teachers’ practices in relation to situated learning theory (SLT) by developing and administering a questionnaire. Following a five-step process for developing a questionnaire by Harlacher (2016), the final items reflected the teachers’ performance indicators identified in the Framework for Philippine mathematics teacher education by the Science Education Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (SEI-DOST) and Philippine Council of Mathematics Teacher Educators Incorporated (MATHTED Inc.), and three of Herrington and Oliver’s (1995) features of SLT: authentic context (AC), authentic activities (AAc), and authentic assessment (AAs). The final questionnaire, comprised of 22 items, was disseminated to 68 mathematics teachers at both elementary and secondary levels. Findings revealed that despite the low familiarity of teachers with SLT and the Framework for Philippine mathematics teacher education, questionnaire responses showed that the majority of teachers implement aspects associated with SLT “two to four times a week”. Moreover, teachers' SLT knowledge was determined to correlate with the implementation of the three characteristics of SLT inside their classrooms, whereas other factors, such as primary or secondary teaching level, years of teaching experience, and teachers' knowledge about the Framework, had no significant correlation with SLT implementation. The study suggests that Philippine teachers should be given adequate training and teaching resources to ensure the practice of SLT inside their mathematics classrooms.