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MATHEMATICS SELF-EFFICACY AND MOTIVATION
OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
Caroline Ramirez
UC Davis
The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitudes and motivation of high school students
toward mathematics course-taking. Two high school math teachers have noticed that more girls are
taking higher level math courses, and are outperforming boys in achievement tests. Their
observation has led to the following research questions: Is there a trend towards more girls taking
more math classes? Are there gender differences in confidence of doing mathematics, intrinsic
value, and perceived usefulness of doing mathematics? Thus, the study was designed to better
understand the course taking pattern of high school students with more female participation.
A survey was conducted at two high schools in suburban towns located within 50 miles of a
large research university. The survey instrument consisted of 51 questions that are mostly in a 5-
point Likert Scale format, similar to the questions developed by Wigfield and Eccles (2000). They
have tried to explain students’ choice of tasks and persistence in those tasks through expectancy-
value theory and ability beliefs. Similar to ability beliefs is self-efficacy, which is another construct
that is included in the survey due to its influence on how students choose their activities and
courses. Bandura defined self-efficacy beliefs as “people’s judgments of their capabilities to
organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances” (1986,
p.391).
In this study, self-efficacy beliefs are further organized into the students’ level of confidence,
the degree to which they value mathematics, and perceived usefulness of mathematics. The
confidence construct measured how well they are doing in their math courses (α=0.883; 7 items).
The construct for intrinsic value included questions on the importance of getting good grades in
math classes and in being good at problem solving (α=0.814; 6 items). The utility construct
measured how they thought about the usefulness of math in everyday life (α=0.698; 3 items).
Based on the students’ previous and present math courses, two ability categories were formed:
high ability and normal/low ability. Similarly, the students’ self report of the math course that they
would like to take next year indicated their persistence, or lack of motivation to persist. From the
factor analysis, the factor scores were obtained and then used as the response variables for the
generalized linear model with two fixed effects: gender and the ability-persistence category.
MANOVA revealed a significant multivariate effect for the ability-persistence category.
Regardless of ability, there is a significant gender difference in the confidence variable for the
group of non-persisters.
This study can be helpful in studying gender equity in the classroom, since attitudes,
persistence and motivation for taking mathematics courses are related to ability group, not just
gender. In the case of high ability girls who are not persisting to take more math classes, it is
important for teachers to pay attention to them because these girls fail to realize the value and
usefulness of the course. As for boys who have normal to low ability in math, teachers should
encourage them to persist in taking more math courses.
Lamberg, T., & Wiest, L. R. (Eds.). (2007). Proceedings of the 29
th
annual meeting of the North
American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education,
Stateline (Lake Tahoe), NV: University of Nevada, Reno
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