What does a confident student look like? Motivated – an enthusiastic learner who is ready to respond in class. Enjoys school and brings the right equipment to class, along with a great can-do attitude. Is engaged and has the perseverance to keep working on more challenging problems. Has a love of learning that spreads across subject areas, and will stay with them for life. Helpfully, they return from summer holidays without having “lost” learning from last year. Would you like more of these students in your class? And fewer who are either discouraged into tragically concluding that they are “just not good at maths”, or anxious and uncomfortable to demonstrate even the maths they do know?
The research literature has gone some way to unscrambling the complex relationships among confidence, fluency and achievement in mathematics. In brief:
A recent Australian study estimated that 35% of the impact of a teaching strategy on NAPLAN results was due to its influence on confidence and self-belief. Sydney Morning Herald 1st March 2024
Geary, D. C., Hoard, M. K., Byrd-Craven, J., & DeSoto, M. C. (2004). Strategy choices in simple and complex addition: Contributions of working memory and counting knowledge for children with mathematical disability. Journal of experimental child psychology, 88(2), 121-151.
Ma, X., & Xu, J. (2004). Determining the causal ordering between attitude toward mathematics and achievement in mathematics. American Journal of Education, 110(3), 256–280.
Supekar, K., Swigart, A. G., Tenison, C., Jolles, D. D., Rosenberg-Lee, M., Fuchs, L., & Menon, V. (2013). Neural predictors of individual differences in response to math tutoring in primary-grade school children. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(20), 8230-8235.
