Mathematics Education: A Perspective on Performance Factors

Mathematics is a fundamental part of human thought and logic, and integral to attempts at understanding the world and ourselves. It provides an effective way of building mental discipline and enhances reasoning power and mental rigor. So, it deals with the fundamentals of all inventions. In India the National Policy on Education in 1986 saw mathematics education as a "vehicle to train a child to think, reason, analyze and to articulate logically. In the report of NCF 2005 it has been revealed that the primary goal of mathematics education is the "mathematization of the child's thought processes" and the development of the "inner resources of the growing child." So, as the numbers of low achiever students in mathematics in the school level are constantly increasing, it is urgently needed to study different factors responsible for enhancing the students' performance in mathematics and suggest remedies accordingly. The book indicates how some factors like- students' attitude towardsthe subject, students' anxiety levels, socioeconomic status of concerned parents and concerned teachers' pedagogical content knowledge in mathematics are significantly co- related with performances.