The effect of the children's literature integrated mathematics courses on 8th grade students' problem solving abilities, mathematical connection and mathematical self-efficacy levels

The study investigates the effects of mathematics lessons integrated with children's literature on 8th-grade students' attitudes towards problem-solving, problem-solving skills and strategies, and mathematical connection self-efficacy. A quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group, which is one of the experimental research methods, was conducted in the study. The study participants were 30 eighth-grade students studying at a public secondary school in the Gerede district of Bolu province. The study data were obtained by using the Attitude Scale towards Mathematical Problem Solving, the Problem-Solving Skills and Strategies Scale, the Mathematical Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Mathematical Connection Self-Efficacy Scale. Data were analyzed using Kolmogorov Smirnov, Shapiro Wilk, Related Samples t-test, Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test, Unrelated Samples t-test, and Mann Whitney U tests. According to the findings, no statistically significant difference was found between the attitudes towards mathematical problem solving, mathematical connection self-efficacy, and mathematical self-efficacy pretest and posttest scores of the 8th-grade students in the experimental and control groups after the mathematics lessons integrated with children's literature. However, it was observed that there was a positive change in the scores of the experimental group students in the sub-dimension of "Evaluation of Problem Solution" of the Problem-Solving Skills and Strategies Scale. It is thought that this finding of the research will contribute to the evaluation of the solution of the problem, which has an important place in the problem-solving stages of the integration of children's literature and mathematics teaching.