How Do Teachers' Beliefs Predict Children's Interest in Math From Kindergarten to Sixth Grade?

Abstract

The present study investigated to what extent teachers' beliefs about children's achievement contribute to the development of children's math interest. In addition, the extent to which other possible predictors, such as performance in math, gender, and race/ethnicity would contribute to the development of children's math interest was examined. Three cohorts of children (N = 849) and their teachers participated in the study starting from kindergarten through their sixth grade. The results showed that especially teachers' beliefs about children's effort and potential performance positively predicted children's interest in math across the primary school years, whereas teachers' beliefs about children's math ability predicted children's math interest only at the beginning of primary school. Further, all the models were similar for boys and girls and for children in different cohort groups. In children's lives, several social actors are very important in shaping children's social experiences, and schools provide an opportunity to investigate these processes in their natural surroundings. In the school context,

Relationships between attitudes and performance in young children’s mathematics

“…As predicted by the first hypothesis, the children in this study demonstrated relatively positive attitudes to mathematics, with a mean score for Liking for Mathematics of 27.25 out of 35, and also fairly high scores for Self-rating and on Freedom from Anxiety and Unhappiness at Failure. This is consistent with other findings that show that, though primary school children are not immune to negative attitudes about mathematics (Petronzi, 2016), most express positive attitudes to it (Blatchford, 1996;Dowker et al, 2012;Gierl & Bisanz, 1995;Upadyaya & Eccles, 2014;Wigfield & Meece, 1988). Most of these previous studies had not looked at children as early as the first year of primary school.…”

“…Most studies indicate that younger children report high levels of enjoyment of mathematics, though there are some exceptions (Markovits & Forgasz, 2017). However, the same studies mostly suggest that enjoyment deteriorates with age (Adelson & McCoach, 2011;Blatchford, 1996;Gierl & Bisanz, 1995;Gottfried, Marcoulides, Gottfried, Oliver, & Guerin, 2007;House, 2006;Upadyaya & Eccles, 2014;Wigfield & Meece, 1988). Van der Beek et al (2017) found that mathematics achievement correlated positively with mathematics enjoyment and negatively with mathematics anxiety in a Dutch adolescent sample.…”

“…Pinxten et al (2014) carried out a longitudinal study of Belgian upper primary school children, and mathematics enjoyment was a mild positive predictor of later mathematics achievement and later perceived effort in mathematics. There has been comparatively little research on the factors that cause children to like or dislike mathematics, but Upadyaya and Eccles (2014) found that teachers' ratings of primary pupils' effort and ability in mathematics predict not only their subsequent achievement and self-rating in mathematics, but their subsequent enjoyment of it.…”

The role of cognitive and non-cognitive factors in mathematics achievement: The importance of the quality of the student-teacher relationship in middle school

“…The role of math anxiety and self-esteem, among the non-cognitive factors, has also been considered by several studies [20]. In addition, there is an increasing body of research suggesting that the quality of the studentteacher relationship plays an important role in mathematics achievement [69,124,125]. However, with the present study we tried to overcome some of the pitfalls of previous studies; indeed, although these constructs have been widely explored for kindergarten [126] and primary school [81], further research seems necessary for middle school [127].…”

Exploring student centered learning and its effect on the self-efficacy of students

“…No matter what euphemism is used to label a class, students will figure out what group they are in and start to embody the stereotypes of that group (White, 1996). Teachers, too, will treat groups differently based upon their perceptions of those groups' learning abilities (Upadyaya & Eccles, 2014). What begins is a cycle of the teacher treating these students as lower ability, the students acting like they belong in that group therefore reinforcing the teacher's behavior.…”