CHAPTER 15

PETER KLOOSTERMAN

BELIEFS ABOUT MATHEMATICS AND

MATHEMATICS LEARNING IN THE SECONDARY
SCHOOL: MEASUREMENT AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
MOTIVATION

Abstract. Students’ beliefs about mathematics and mathematics learning can have a substantial impact on
their interest in mathematics, their enjoyment of mathematics, and their motivation in mathematics
classes. This chapter has a dual focus with respect to such beliefs. First, an interview instrument to
measure personal and environmental beliefs that influence student motivation in mathematics is
discussed. Drawing from the mathematics education as well as psychological literatures, the instrument’s
questions focus on topics including feelings about school in general, non-school influences on motivation,
self-confidence, perceptions of ability, goal orientation, study habits, mathematics content, assessment
practices, and expectations of teachers. Second, findings from the instrument that are specific to beliefs
about the nature of mathematics are described in the chapter. Findings include the fact that the nature of
mathematics is not something secondary students think about. When pressed, however, most of their
comments deal with the procedural rather than conceptual aspects of the subject. Students also tend to
feel that memorization is an important part of mathematics even though they feel individuals who do not
memorize well can still succeed. Taken as a whole, the chapter documents the importance of considering
a wide variety of beliefs when trying to understand individual student interest and motivation in
mathematics.

Interest in beliefs about mathematics and mathematics learning has increased

substantially in the last ten years. As can be seen from the contents of this volume,
some of that interest focuses on the concept of beliefs and some focuses on the
beliefs themselves. In this chapter, I focus on the beliefs of secondary school
students under the assumptions that beliefs are an important influence on motivation
and that motivating students is a major goal of instruction. Specifically, I will
describe an interview instrument for assessing students’ motivation-related beliefs
and then summarize data collected with the instrument that answer the research
question “What do students think mathematics is and how does one learn
mathematics?”

1. BELIEFS AND MOTIVATION IN MATHEMATICS

Early researchers on motivation treated it like an inner drive (Graham & Weiner,
1996) but, starting with Atkinson’s (1957) discussion of motivation as the product of

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Education? 247-269.
© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
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expectation of succeeding on a task and perceived value of accomplishing that task,

research on motivation has been increasingly treated as a function of cognitive
decision making. Attribution theory (e.g., Graham & Weiner, 1996; Weiner, 1984),
self-worth theory (e.g., Covington, 1992; Graham & Wiener, 1996), self-efficacy
theory (Bandura, 1997), and goal-orientation theory (e.g., Ames, 1992; Blumenfeld,
1992; Elliott & Dweck, 1988; Graham & Weiner, 1996) all assume that individuals
only put forth effort when they perceive that effort will result in fulfilment of their
personal goals. Despite the need for better understanding of motivation in secondary
school mathematics, these theories have rarely been applied to this subject area.
In terms of mathematics instruction, there is a need for better understanding of
how psychological theories of motivation apply to the mathematics classroom. Of
particular interest is the situation where mathematics instruction is changing to
include increased focus on reasoning, problem solving, and conceptual
understanding (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 2000). In
such reform-oriented classrooms, cognitive theories of motivation suggest that
students may quit trying to learn when the instructor stresses comprehension of
concepts over memorization of steps to get an answer (Kloosterman, 1996).
In this chapter, the assumption is made that motivation is a cognitive activity and
that students make specific choices about how and when they apply effort to learn
(Kloosterman, 1996; Stipek, 1996). These choices are based on students’ beliefs,
defined as personal conceptions that mediate action. That is, a student’s belief is
something the student knows or feels that affects effort – in this case effort to learn
mathematics. This definition is similar to some of the psychological work on beliefs
(e.g., Bartsch & Wellman, 1989; Pintrich & Schrauben, 1992) but differs from
definitions elsewhere in this volume. Moreover, the term belief is sometimes absent
from current motivational work (e.g., attribution theory, self-worth theory, goal-
orientation theory) but it is often a synonym for terms such as attitudes and
dispositions that are used. Finally, the distinction between knowledge and beliefs is
important in some contexts (see Golden, this volume) but that distinction is not
important for this chapter because the emphasis is on how knowledge and beliefs
influence action.
It is also important to note that this chapter will focus on how motivation to learn
mathematics can result from beliefs using several cognitive motivation theories.
Given the subtle differences in the cognitive motivation theories (attribution theory,
self-worth theory, self-efficacy theory, goal-orientation theory, etc.), one could
argue that mixing them in a single study is inappropriate. However, teachers and
researchers need to know the extent to which one of these theories is more
appropriate than others with respect to motivation to learn mathematics. None of the
theories has been adequately tested in the realm of mathematics learning and thus,
when looking at motivational beliefs, it is appropriate to work from a variety of
perspectives.