Carencias en la formación inicial y continua de los docentes y bajo rendimiento escolar en matemática en Costa Rica

Abstract

At the request of the Consejo Superior de Educación of Costa Rica, two research projects were conducted that sought to reveal the factors that affect the poor performance in mathematics in both secondary and primary
school. These were qualitative projects and collected perceptions by the actors within the educational system about their situation. Focus groups,
interviews and questionnaires completed by students, teachers and mathematics consultants were conducted. In addition to one focus group with institutional authorities, family responsible and education students from two public universities and one private, semi-structured interviews with
national and international experts in the area of Mathematics Education were accomplished. The five major findings relate to emerging issues
that impact academic performance in mathematics: problems in the teacher training (mathematical pedagogy), attitudes which show a cultural phobia towards mathematics, problems of infrastructure, problems in the hiring of teachers and about the lack of attention to socio-cultural conditions of students.