According to (sources) math and reading scores have dropped in the US for the fourth and eighth-graders since 2017. Saritas, T., & Akdemir, O. (2009) studied the primary factors that cause student’s low performance. Accordingly, they found out that instructional strategy and methods, teacher competency in math education, and motivation are the three most important factors that determine the performance of students in math though other factors like intelligence, age, socio-economic status of parents/guardians, residential area, daily study hours, etc. also affect performance. Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2016) also argued poor performance is attributed to a bad attitude which in turn stems from lack of motivation.
Thus, the feedback effects of attitude and motivation entail educators need to understand the antecedents of attitude and their consequences. Usually, teachers complain about the student’s bad attitude towards math. The question is what they can do to adjust students’ attitudes in addition to having on the subject matter.
Hence, Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2016) attitudes of students/workers into three components such as affect, behavioral intent, and thought (cognition).
- Affect the emotional element of an attitude of students to math. For example, “I like math” or “I prefer biology than math”
- Behavioral intent: the behavioral intent of students towards math or any other subject. “I want to drop this math course” or “I want to transfer to another department because I don’t want to take math”
- Thought: this refers to the student’s perception of the subject. For example, “I believe Asians are good at math”
Students derive their attitudes through social learning which is learning from observing the model that includes parents/guardians, peer groups, religious organizations, and culture. So, to adjust students’ attitudes towards math, it is imperative to adjust the models’ attitudes.
References:
1. Across the Board, Scores Drop in Math and Reading for U.S. Students | Education News | US New
2 .Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2016). Orgb. Cengage Learning
3. Saritas, T., & Akdemir, O. (2009). Identifying factors affecting the mathematics achievement of students for better instructional design. International Journal of Instructional Technology and distance learning, 6(12), 21-36.
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