MY NEW PROBLEM STATEMENT...

I've made some changes for my problem statement. Hopefully this one is better than before...

PROBLEM STATEMENT...

Management is the process of designing and maintaining an environment in which individuals, working together in groups, efficiently accomplish selected goals. (Koontz & Weihrich, 2006). This shows that management is a very important process for each and every organization to apply in theirs. The terms organization can not only applied on companies and associations. According to a blog named Mr Baker’s Math Class, classroom can also be seen as an organization and a teacher is considered as the manager. Teachers need to know the best way to manage the classroom in order to attract students to listen and pay attention in class other than be interested in the subjects being taught. It may seem like an easy job but it is not. A list made by a website, www.careeroverview.com and was posted on February 6^th, 2011 stated that a public school teacher was ranked 12^th in the list of The 25 Most Difficult Jobs in the World. It also described that one may not likely to lose their life to the teaching job but probably lose some sanity.

According to the administrator of the toptens.com, a list on Most Boring Subjects in School was made 6 years ago and has been voted on over 1000 times since. Mathematics is placed as the Most Boring Subjects in School followed by Spanish and Science. It is so boring that actually chewed 3 gums to keep me awake for the worst 50 minutes of my daily life in college (Anonymous, 2007). There are many possible reasons for the attitudes. This might have happen caused by the classroom management shown by their teachers. There have been several studies on math anxiety (Ho, H., Senturk, D.,Lam, A., Zimmer, J., Hong, S., Okamoto, S., Nakazawa, Y., Wang, C.,2000; Ma 1999; Cates & Rymer, 2003) that may have something to do with the classroom experience (Schefele & Csikszentmihalyi, 1995). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine whether classroom management influence students’ satisfaction in Mathematics class.

ABOUT MY RESEARCH...

I've made some research on the things I want to study and so here is my background of the study. It's quite tough but lucky I managed.

BACKGROUND OF STUDY...

Classroom management and organization are topics that have been looked thoroughly among the school administrators and  have recently attracted more attention from teacher educators and researchers because a teacher’s ability to effectively manage the classroom and to organize instruction are basic components of teaching (Evertson, Emmer, Sanford & Clements, 1983). Moreover, classroom management strategies have a strong potential to positively influence student achievement and learning. There are also outstanding amount of concern for many teachers, especially new incomers and teachers who are using or applying a new instructional approaches for the first time (Delong & Winter, 1998).

There are many studies and research showing that classroom management is one of the main factors that influence learning. For example, in their study, Wang, Heartel and Walberg (1993) identified that classroom management as being the first in a list of important factors that influence school learning. Also, Marzano and Marzano (2003) got the same results with Wang and his colleagues (1993) by identifying that classroom management is the most important factor which could influence the school learning. Other than that, Ben (2006) also states that effective classroom management strategies are significant to a successful teacher’s delivery of instruction. Effective classroom management prepares the classroom for an effective instruction which is important for the learning process.

Throughout the years, various researchers and educators have defined the terms classroom management differently according to their research or ideas. Generally, classroom management refers to the actions and strategies that teachers or educators use to maintain order (Doyle, 1986). Martin, Yin and Baldwin (1998) define classroom management as a larger and complete ways that describes all teachers’ effort to oversee a big number of activities in the classroom including learning, social interaction and students behaviours. Classroom management constitutes three broad dimensions; person, instruction and discipline. (Martin & Baldwin, 1992)

Trickett and Moos (1974) examined the relationship between the classroom environment and students’ satisfaction and mood. They found that different dimensions of classroom environment related differentially to students’ satisfaction and mood. For example, students give a good feedback which shows that greater satisfaction and security in the classroom which emphasized high student involvement, personal student-teacher relationship, and teacher’s support. Students were less satisfied in classrooms which were low in teacher’s support.

Student needs, interests, experiences, and personalization into learning activities could be fulfilled by a good classroom organization. The purpose of the classroom activities is to manage students’ self-expression, encourage consideration of others’ opinion, to develop good listening skills and to encourage critical thinking. Students learning environments may be in various forms. Bereiter and Scardamalia (cited in Elen et al., 2007, p. 1) for instance, distinguish between ‘messing around’, ‘hands-on learning or guided discovery’, ‘learning through problem solving’, ‘curiosity driven inquiry’, and ‘theory improvement inquiry’. Although students learning environments and different in form and purpose, they also share common basic features. In most so-called students learning environments, students are given certain difficult task so that they could learn through the experiences. For instance, rather than presenting information on a good listening skills, students are asked to make a short play or their own presentation in showing ways of how a good listener should react in different circumstances.