Almost three-quarters of high school students think that they can be good at math if they work hard, but fewer say they follow through with that effort when the work gets challenging, according to a new national survey. Less than half feel comfortable asking questions when they don鈥檛 understand something.
The results from YouthTruth, a nonprofit that surveys K-12 students and families, demonstrate the perspectives of almost 90,000 high school students toward math, across 62 districts in 14 states. The findings represent the racial/ethnic breakdown of students across the country.
The results highlight American teenagers鈥� deep ambivalence about how math is taught in schools. While most think that it鈥檚 an important subject to learn, they鈥檙e often uninterested in the work that they鈥檙e given in classes, which they see as disconnected from math鈥檚 real-world applications.
鈥淪chools are not effectively showing them why formal mathematics is important. They鈥檙e not connecting it to their career or real-world experience,鈥� said Jen de Forest, YouthTruth鈥檚 director of organizational learning and communications. 鈥淲e鈥檙e leaving all of their motivation un-sparked.鈥�
The survey comes as U.S. students鈥� math skills have fallen in the wake of the pandemic, and as debates about how best to engage kids in the subject have grown louder.
Leading organizations in the field, like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, that schools should help students develop positive identities as math learners and demonstrate that math can help solve everyday problems.
But some attempts to emphasize math鈥檚 applied uses in this way have faced pushback.
In California, for example, the state鈥檚 new math framework suggests that math can be a vehicle for students to address important issues in their lives and communities, including social inequities. In response to proposed drafts, close to a thousand math and science professors and STEM professionals signed a letter arguing that this approach would politicize the subject.
Perspectives on math varied by demographics
Some of the YouthTruth findings were encouraging, said Susan May, the director of curriculum at the Charles A. Dana Center, a math research and technical assistance organization at the University of Texas at Austin, who was not involved with the survey. She was 鈥減leasantly surprised鈥� to see that 70 percent of students thought they could be good at math if they worked hard at it.
鈥淲e鈥檝e done a lot of work over the past 20 years with growth mindset鈥擟arol Dweck, David Yeager. I thought, huh, maybe some of this is paying off,鈥� May said, referencing the idea that a person鈥檚 abilities aren鈥檛 fixed, but can be improved through effort.
Perspectives on math varied by demographics and family background, however.
Students whose parents held graduate degrees were significantly more likely than their peers to say that it is important to learn math, that they can be good at math if they work hard, and that they feel comfortable asking questions in class.
Comfort with asking questions was related to other aspects of student identity, too. Boys were more likely than girls to say that they felt that they could ask questions in class. And white students were more likely to say so than Hispanic students鈥�50 percent compared to 40 percent, respectively.
It鈥檚 possible that students whose parents have advanced degrees have a window into math鈥檚 applications later in life that their peers don鈥檛 have, said de Forest.
What might be able to change students鈥� perspectives on the subject? The researchers examined a specific subset of the data for clues. They looked at students who met all three of the following criteria:
- They strongly agreed they could be good at math if they worked hard;
- They said they always kept trying in math when the work gets hard; and
- They said they always felt comfortable asking questions.
In their open-ended responses to the survey, these students surfaced a similar theme: Their teachers created classrooms where they felt challenged, but also cared for, and encouraged to ask questions.
Teacher-student relationships are a critical piece of this puzzle, de Forest said. 鈥淢ath is a social environment,鈥� she added. It鈥檚 鈥渓ow-hanging fruit鈥� to create a space where students feel safe to explore and discuss, she said.
Students think 鈥榮chool math鈥� is uninteresting
Despite the variance in how students perceived their own math identities, they agreed on one thing. The problems they worked on in math class weren鈥檛 that interesting.
Less than half of students said that their work was often or always interesting, with 23 percent saying it never or rarely was. These findings were similar across demographics鈥攇ender, race, the year in which the student took Algebra I, and parent education level.
Researchers held more open-ended discussions about this finding in focus groups with students in two districts. In these conversations, the high schoolers drew a distinction between 鈥渟chool math鈥� and 鈥渞eal math.鈥�
School math, they said, were the subjects needed to graduate and stand out in the college admissions process. But real math would help them navigate the financial landscape they would encounter as adults. Students offered examples of these skills, which they wanted to learn in class鈥攎anaging a bank account, investing, understanding loans, and filing their taxes.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 really a proxy for wanting to understand power and how government works,鈥� said de Forest. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a connection between this desire for math literacy and a desire for citizenship.鈥�
Financial literacy is important, said May, but the answer to the engagement question isn鈥檛 to make the high school math curriculum all about taxes. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not all of what the power of math is,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think that鈥檚 where we have failed to portray to students the value around modeling problems, modeling phenomena in the world, making predictions, statistical analysis.鈥�
Some states, including Ohio, Oregon, and Utah, have tried to better align math course pathways to students鈥� college and career goals. Twenty-two states have signed onto the through the Dana Center, which aims to create broader options for advanced math in high school and modernize math courses and content.
Still, there can be a tension for teachers between spending time on real-world, rich problems and preparing their students with the knowledge they need to graduate.
鈥淲hat I often see in the implementation side is this corner that teachers find themselves in, which is preparing for a state accountability test, which is often very skills-driven, versus taking time to do interesting problems, and feeling kind of trapped,鈥� May said.
In her role at the Dana Center, May works to develop middle and high school curricula that try to bridge that gap.
Figuring out how to strike this balance is crucial, said de Forest.
鈥淭he curriculum needs to be taught in a way that鈥檚 contextualized for students, so that they can see the pathway into college or career or a trade,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey deserve the answer to that.鈥�
