Measuring teachers' beliefs about mathematics

M.A. Lazim and M.T. Abu Osman have written an article called Measuring Teachers' Beliefs about Mathematics: A Fuzzy Set Approach. The article was published in the current issue of International Journal of Social Sciences. Here is the abstract of their article:

This paper deals with the application of a fuzzy set in measuring teachers' beliefs about mathematics. The vagueness of beliefs was transformed into standard mathematical values using a fuzzy preferences model. The study employed a fuzzy approach questionnaire which consists of six attributes for measuring mathematics teachers' beliefs about mathematics. The fuzzy conjoint analysis approach based on fuzzy set theory was used to analyze the data from twenty three mathematics teachers from four secondary schools in Terengganu, Malaysia. Teachers' beliefs were recorded in form of degrees of similarity and its level of agreement. The attribute 'Drills and practice is one of the best ways of learning mathematics' scored the highest degree of similarity at 0.79860 with level of 'strongly agree'. The results showed that the teachers' beliefs about mathematics were varied. This is shown by different levels of agreement and degrees of similarity of the measured attributes.