Cross-National Comparison of Mathematical Modelling Attitudes Among Educators

The concept of mathematical modelling is an integral part of modern school mathematics curricula. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the mathematical modelling attitude between Malaysian and United Arab Emirates (UAE) teachers. We conducted a cross-sectional survey study with 413 Malaysian and UAE mathematics teachers as the sample for the study. We computed descriptive statistics (e.g., mean and standard deviation) and Pearson correlation using SPSS Statistics 23 for the relevant variables to test for the assumption of factor analysis. Moreover, we used inferential statistics (e.g., factor analysis and independent samples t-tests) using the Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) program to answer research questions. Findings indicate that motivation and interest partially mediate the relationships between constructivism, understanding and relevance to real-life applications. At the same time, results from the independent t-test showed that there was a statistically significant difference between Malaysian and UAE teachers in the level of mathematical modelling attitude. However, there were no significant differences in mathematical modelling attitudes by gender (male vs. female) and school location (urban vs. rural). These findings shed light on potential obstacles to the application of mathematical modelling and point to ways to get beyond them.