Before I began discussing the topic of math mindset with my students, I wanted to assess my students’ current attitudes about math. I wanted to know if they had already developed some negative views about their mathematical abilities by grade 3. I wanted to do this to get a baseline about what their existing attitudes were. I found a questionnaire that measured the extent to which students have a mental mindset. The following website offers a wide range of materials to both assess and promote a positive math mindset: http://www.growthmindsetmaths.com/
Here is a link to the questionnaire that I gave to my students. I found that the questionnaire was a bit tricky for them to do independently – some of the wording was unclear and there were a few double negatives! In this way, we did it together. I read the questions out loud and explained the statements to them so that they were easier to understand. I did not ask them to put their names on the paper because I wanted them to be as honest as possible. I told them that they were helping me with my “passion project” which made them even more keen to help me with the questionnaires.
I was very happy with the results of the survey. The questionnaire also came with its own way to analyze the results.
The intervals are below:
32-39 – strongly growth mindset
24-31 – growth mindset
16-23 – cannot be categorized
8-15 – fixed mindset
0-7 – strongly fixed mindset
When I added up all of the scores for my students and averaged them, they had an overall score of 28.16. This put them in the middle of the range for a growth mindset. This indicates that my group of students have a healthy belief in their mathematical skills. This was very encouraging, but there was still room for improvement!
It also made me wonder where a negative math mindset begins. Given that the grade 3 students had a positive belief, I felt like it would be a good idea to assess the mindsets of the students in grades 4 and 5 and beyond. This would allow some idea about where explicit teaching of a positive math mindset would be more effective and necessary. I decided that I would ask the grade 4 and 5 teachers to administer the same questionnaire to assess the results of older students.
The next part of my action plan is to encourage an even more positive mindset.
Hi Suzanne, that’s great that your students, in general, have a growth mindset when it comes to mathematics! Keep us posted on your findings with the grade 4 and 5 students.
When I taught grade 3, I noticed that many of the students I taught liked doing calculations but didn’t like explaining their thinking. I was recently on the Book Creator website and saw a video about Increasing Writing in Math (http://bit.ly/2mALPRT) and it made me wonder if this would help or hinder with a positive mindset around mathematics… Just food for thought!
Hi Lara,
It makes me so happy, as well, that a negative mindset does not seep in so early. I actually have now asked the entire school population from Grade 2 to Grade 12 to view any trends. I also administered it to the teachers and found some interesting things. I will soon have all of the data ready and will share in a post.
Thanks so much for sending me this link. I just watched the entire webinar on using Book Creator. Not only will I start using Book Creator (I did not know about it before), but I think it will be a fantastic way for students to express themselves – with the communication of ideas, but also as a reflection of some of the math videos that we are watching from Jo Boaler’s youcubed website abot brain plasticity.
Thanks for your feedback! I hope you have a great March Break. See you in April.