Students' Beliefs about Learning School Mathematics

Abstract

In this study we considered the mathematical beliefs and achievement of 62 students in grades 1-6 from 1 school where teachers were participating in a project to improve mathematics teaching. Students, most of whom were from lower and lower-middle socioeconomic families, were interviewed about whether they liked school and mathematics, whether their parents helped them with schoolwork, whether they were confident of their abilities in mathematics, whether they felt mathematics was useful, and whether they felt all children had the ability to learn mathematics. Students were also tested for computation and problem-solving ability. Trends that emerged for this sample included (a) students in the upper-elementary grades were able to articulate their beliefs more clearly than students in the lower grades, (b) students who enjoyed mathematics were also confident of their ability in mathematics, (c) students with moderate achievement were just as confident of their abilities as high achievers, (d) most students believed that it was important to learn mathematics and that anyone who tried could learn mathematics, and (e) there was little evidence of a relation between parental support and student achievement.

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