The Relevance of Math Lessons: Does the Classroom Context Help Students to Value Mathematics?

• In Event: Interest and Value: Motivating Students in Math, Science, and Reading

Abstract

Students’ value beliefs of mathematics, particularly utility value, decline throughout secondary school. However, the role of teachers and classmates concerning students’ value beliefs of mathematics remains unclear. Using a sample of 1868 ninth-grade students and their math teachers, the association of instruction addressing the relevance of mathematics and perceived classmates’ math valuing with students’ attainment, interest, utility, and relative cost value and with five sub-facets of utility value (daily life, school, social, job, future) was assessed. Analyses showed that practical orientation of math lessons, linking of mathematics with other themes, and perceived classmates’ math valuing were positively related with students’ value beliefs of mathematics. The association of those predictors was strongest with utility value and varied by utility-value sub-facets.

Authors

• Brigitte Maria Schreier, Tuebingen University

• Anna-Lena Dicke, University of California - Irvine

• Hanna Gaspard, University of Tübingen

• Isabelle Häfner, University of Tübingen

• Barbara Flunger, University of Koblenz-Landau

• Benjamin Nagengast, Tuebingen University

• Ulrich Trautwein, University of Tubingen