Action research on developing students' tolerance awareness and mathematical reasoning skills with multicultural education and flipped classroom model

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the results of an action research applied to improve sixth-grade students' awareness of tolerance values and mathematical reasoning skills, and to address the problems encountered in teaching, by implementing multicultural education and flipped classroom model-based teaching in mathematics education. The participants of the study consisted of 23 sixth-grade students who were selected through purposive sampling method using criterion sampling. The data collection tools used were forms to determine the awareness level of tolerance values and mathematical reasoning skills, a personal information form, semi-structured interview forms, camera recordings, student self-assessment forms, scenarios, and researcher and student journals. The research was conducted as three cycles and six action plans during the spring semester of the 2021-2022 academic year. Prior to the action research, focus group discussions were held with students to determine the current situation, and scenarios were created based on these discussions and applied to the students. In the research, activities and scenarios were prepared for the sub-dimensions of multiculturalism to raise awareness towards the value of tolerance. These activities and scenarios were applied by the researcher during mathematics classes for six weeks. In addition, activities developed by the researcher were implemented to improve students' mathematical reasoning skills. The obtained data was analyzed using content analysis. In the research, expert opinions were obtained for validity and long-term communication with participants, continuous observation, variation, supportive activities for participant honesty, repeated questioning, short interval meetings, peer evaluations, and intercoder reliability coefficient calculation methods were used to ensure reliability. The findings obtained from the analysis of scenarios using the graded scoring key have shown that the tolerance value and mathematical reasoning skills of the students were at a low level before the action research. According to the results obtained from the scenarios applied at the end of the action research, it has been found that students' awareness of tolerance towards the sub-dimensions of multiculturalism, such as culture, race-ethnicity, gender, socio-economic level, language, and belief differences, increased after the action research. Furthermore, according to the interviews conducted at the end of the action research, students stated that they understood people better and became more tolerant towards them compared to before the action research. Additionally, the results revealed that students showed improvement in predicting, solving non-routine problems, recognizing patterns, developing logical ways for solving, presenting the same data in different forms, and generalization skills in mathematical reasoning, but did not show improvement in the sub-skill of deciding the correctness of the solution. According to the interviews conducted at the end of the action research, students also mentioned that they better understood the math lesson and became more interested in it due to the activities related to mathematical reasoning. Furthermore, in the interviews conducted with the students, they stated that the inverted classroom model was more enjoyable and useful than the traditional classroom model. Based on the findings, recommendations have been made for the development of multicultural mathematics education and reasoning skills.