Abstract:
As part of a longitudinal study of mathematics achievement 58 classroom teachers in 31 schools rated the classroom behaviour and mathematics achievement of 258 primary and lower secondary South Australian students. The Student Behaviour Checklist used by the teachers had been designed to measure learned helplessness and mastery behaviours, but confirmatory factor analysis indicated a single scale of academic behaviour. The teacher ratings were analysed with the Rasch model and the results compared with both the prior achievement of the students and their scores on the Progressive Achievement Test in Mathematics one year later. In addition to gender and grade level differences, the results of these analyses are presented in terms of the extent to which teacher perceptions were related to prior student performance and were predictive of subsequent achievement. The educational implications of the relationships between teacher perceptions,learned helplessness and achievement in mathematics will be explored.