The relation of teacher empathy, mathematics training, and pedogogical preparation to changes in their students' achievement and attitude

The purpose of this study was to determine if certain characteristics of mathematics teachers are related to their students' attitudes and achievement. The teacher characteristics deemed most important by the researcher were mathematics training, pedogogical preparation, and empathy. Thus the following null hypothesis was tested at the .05 level of significance: There is no significant relation between a linear combination of teachers' mathematics training, pedogogical preparation, and empathy and a linear combination of their students' attitude and achievement change. The sample of the study consisted of all seventh grade mathematics teachers in four suburban school districts in the Houston metropolitan area. The seventh grade was chosen because it seems to be an important formulation period for attitudes toward mathematics (Callahan, 1971 and Poffenberger and Norton, 1959). In three of the districts two classes of each teacher, one morning and one afternoon,were selected in order to eliminate the possible variable of fatigue of the students or teachers. One of the districts, however, operated on a revolving schedule so students had mathematics at a different time of the day every day of the week. Therefore, in this district only one class per teacher was selected. [...]