ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the underlying psychology of teaching and learning mathematics. After a discussion of how research is conducted in education, various learning theories are compared and contrasted, such as the behaviorist model versus constructivism. Bruner’s stages of learning and the Van Hiele model for geometry are investigated and applied to the planning of mathematics lessons. Inquiry as an instructional method is examined, contrasting a deductive to an inductive approach to teaching. The chapter concludes with an explanation of motivation, using Ford’s model that suggests “motivation” involves goals of the students, interest and curiosity, and self-efficacy or confidence. This naturally leads to a discussion of attitudes and dispositions, as well as mathematics anxiety and how it develops in some students. Overall, the chapter provides a theoretical basis for planning, teaching, and assessing in the mathematics classroom so that the reader has a stronger sense of how students think and process new information.
