Motivation, Study Habits -- Not IQ -- Determine Growth in
Math Achievement
Science
Daily
Dec. 20, 2012 — It's not how smart students are
but how motivated they are and how they study that determines their growth in
math achievement. That's the main finding of a new study that appears in the
journal Child Development.
The study
was conducted by researchers at the University of Munich and the University of
Bielefeld.
"While
intelligence as assessed by IQ tests is important in the early stages of
developing mathematical competence, motivation and study skills play a more
important role in students' subsequent growth," according to Kou Murayama,
postdoctoral researcher of psychology at the University of California, Los
Angeles (who was at the University of Munich when he led the study).
Murayama
and colleagues looked at six annual waves of data from a German longitudinal
study assessing math ability in 3,520 students in grades 5 to 10. They
investigated how students' motivation, study skills, and intelligence jointly
predicted long-term growth in their math achievement over five years.
Intelligence
was strongly linked to students' math achievement, but only in the initial
development of competence in the subject. Motivation and study skills turned
out to be more important factors in terms of students' growth (their learning
curve or ability to learn) in math. Students who felt competent; were
intrinsically motivated; used skills like summarizing, explaining, and making
connections to other materials; and avoided rote learning showed more growth in
math achievement than those who didn't. In contrast, students' intelligence had
no relation to growth in math achievement.
"Our
study suggests that students' competencies to learn in math involve factors
that can be nurtured by education," explained Murayama. "Educational
programs focusing on students' motivation and study skills could be an
important way to advance their competency in math as well as in other
subjects."
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for Research in Child Development, via
EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further
information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
1. Kou
Murayama, Reinhard Pekrun, Stephanie Lichtenfeld and Rudolf vom Hofe. Predicting Long-Term Growth in
Students' Mathematics Achievement: The Unique Contributions of Motivation and
Cognitive Strategies. Child
Development, 20 DEC 2012 DOI:10.1111/cdev.12036
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