Learners' motivations for preferred contexts in mathematical literacy

Abstract

The National Curriculum Statement introduced mathematical literacy officially in 2006. Learners in general perform poorly at mathematics in South Africa but there is strong belief that learners should graduate from schools sufficiently literate to deal with the mathematical issues they will encounter in out-of-school situations. Based on this, this study is an investigation of the contexts, which grades 8 - 10 learners would prefer to engage with mathematics. The aim of this study was thus to investigate mathematical literacy in relation to learners' motivations for the contexts they would prefer to deal with in mathematical literacy. The emphasis of the study is to concentrate on learners' written motivations for mathematical contexts. Data were collected using a questionnaire that deals with contexts for mathematics.