Differential relationships between mathematics self-efficacy and national test performance according to perceived task difficulty

Street, Karin Elisabeth Sørlie; Stylianides, Gabriel J.; Malmberg, Lars‐Erik

doi:10.1080/0969594x.2022.2095980

Cited by 4 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…These findings, and particularly the finding that students who had the highest confidence put the number calculation on the first place because of the easiness of the task, make clear that the students' confidence with respect to whether they think they can solve the task, that is, the perceived solvability, is a relevant factor when investigating the students liking of the tasks. This is in line with Bandura's (1997) theory about self-efficacy which refers to the judgments individuals have about their perceived capability to perform future tasks and of which the perceived level of task difficulty is an integral part (Street et al, 2022). According to Bandura (1993, p. 119), "positive attitudes toward mathematics were better predicted by perceived self-efficacy than by actual ability."…”

Section: Earlier Research On Students' Appraisal Of Taskssupporting

confidence: 70%

“…This pivotal role of the tasks that are used in mathematics education has also been emphasized by several other scholars. Among other things, they came to the conclusions that mathematical tasks largely determine what students learn (Hiebert & Wearne, 1993), that tasks have the greatest influence on what students learn compared to other features in the classroom (Smith & Stein, 1998), that tasks can shape students’ mathematical learning opportunities (Watson & Mason, 2007) and that the chosen tasks have a major part in determining the quality and nature of their learning (Clarke & Roche, 2018).…”

Section: Theoretical Perspective and Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Appraisement of mathematics tasks—a point of view of Norwegian eighth-grade students

Høgset,

Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen,

Berg

2024

Asian Journal for Mathematics Education

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In the large body of literature that is available about the role of motivation in mathematics education, the focus is mostly on students’ attitudes and feelings toward mathematics in general. In the current small-scale explorative study, we zoomed in on what students think about the tasks they can come across in mathematics education. To investigate students’ appraisement of mathematics tasks, that is, their judgment of how much they like mathematics tasks, we used a mixed method approach with an online questionnaire including closed and open questions. We asked 67 Norwegian eight graders to give an appraisal score for 24 tasks and to express in their own words their reasons for liking/disliking them. In addition, the students also had to indicate for each task whether they think they can solve the tasks. The analysis of the data indicated that the students may prefer bare number problems over context problems. Similarly, students inclined to like puzzle-like tasks more than estimation or straightforward tasks. The reasons for liking/disliking a task most often refer to the difficulty or easiness of the task. The data about the perceived solvability revealed that the more the students believed that they can solve the task, the more they liked the task. Given the different appraisals that the students granted to the different task types and the comments they came with, there is much reason to afford students a stronger voice in mathematics education research, particularly when it is about the tasks used in mathematics education.

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Section: Earlier Research On Students' Appraisal Of Taskssupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Theoretical Perspective and Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Appraisement of mathematics tasks—a point of view of Norwegian eighth-grade students

Høgset,

Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen,

Berg

2024

Asian Journal for Mathematics Education

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“…A possible interpretation of this finding is that level marking affects students' perceptions of the level of difficulty, and if their mastery experience has previously been low when solving tasks marked as difficult, their level of self-efficacy may decrease. This resonates with Bandura (1997), Chen and Zimmerman (2007), and Street et al (2022b), who suggested that students' opinions about whether tasks are easy or difficult affect their self-efficacy.…”

Section: Discussion and Concluding Remarksmentioning

confidence: 61%

“…Street et al (2017) claimed that students' perceptions of difficulty levels differ and may not reflect the actual difficulty of the task. How students perceive task difficulty is important because this perception affects their self-efficacy (Chen and Zimmerman, 2007;Street et al, 2022b).…”

Section: Self-efficacy Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of level-marked mathematics tasks on students’ self-efficacy: An experimental study

Herset

Ghami

Bjerke³

2023

Front. Psychol.

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This study investigates whether and to what extent students’ self-efficacy in mathematics is affected by level-marked mathematics tasks. An online survey with an experimental design was used to collect data from lower secondary school students in Norway (n = 436). The effect of level-marked mathematics tasks was measured by comparing students’ responses to tasks with no level marking with their responses to the same tasks marked as being easy, medium or difficult. The study’s design was set up carefully, featuring experimental and control groups. A Wilcoxon test showed a significant gap in students’ self-efficacy when approaching the same tasks without level marking and with difficult-level marking. In addition, a Friedman test showed that the gap between students’ self-efficacy when encountering the same task with and without level marking expanded significantly with increasing difficulty markings. This result has implications for students in terms of their mathematics learning and for mathematics teachers in terms of their future differentiation initiatives.

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“…Since we were unable to find previous research on the relationship between task level marking and baseline selfefficacy on students' self-efficacy, and since students' perceived task difficulty level might differ from the task's actual difficulty level, which is important when students form their efficacy beliefs (Street et al, 2017(Street et al, , 2022, we put forward the following two non-directional hypotheses in accordance with RQ 2 :…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Level-Marked Tasks on Students’ Mathematics Self-Efficacy and Persistence—Investigating a Tiered Activity

Herset,

Bjerke,

El Ghami

2024

IER

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In school mathematics, tiering tasks according to students’ readiness levels is a common approach to adapting content to address students’ varying abilities. To distinguish between different tiers, the tasks are commonly marked by their level of difficulty, as in so called level-marked tasks – a strategy used in differentiated instruction to help students gain mastery and improve performance. However, less is known about whether and to what extent the marking of the tasks works as intended. Regarded as a significant predictor of students’ performance in mathematics, the level marking of mathematics tasks and their effects on students’ self-efficacy and persistence were investigated. The online survey part of an experimental design was used to collect data from 436 lower secondary students in Norway. Independent sample t-tests and Mann–Whitney U tests revealed that, when students across groups were given the same mathematics tasks with and without level markings, tasks marked as difficult reduced both students’ mathematics self-efficacy and their persistence, even for students with high baseline self-efficacy. Although more research is needed to fully understand how the level markings of mathematics tasks affect students’ self-efficacy and persistence, the reported results have implications for both mathematics teachers and textbook authors.

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Differential relationships between mathematics self-efficacy and national test performance according to perceived task difficulty

Cited by 4 publications

References 28 publications

Appraisement of mathematics tasks—a point of view of Norwegian eighth-grade students

Appraisement of mathematics tasks—a point of view of Norwegian eighth-grade students

The effect of level-marked mathematics tasks on students’ self-efficacy: An experimental study

The Effect of Level-Marked Tasks on Students’ Mathematics Self-Efficacy and Persistence—Investigating a Tiered Activity

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