Primary school motivation in Mathematics
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Abstract
Several authors show the influence of motivation on academic performance. When students are focused on tasks learning and enjoy them (flow), they spend more time and effort. School and extracurricular activities are ideal environments for the emergence of flow experiences. They provide clear goals, and immediate feedback and challenges which match with students´ skills. In fact, when a student experiences flow by performing an activity, they choose subjects that involve this activity in later years or extracurricular activities. The importance of mathematics literacy is no longer disputed to become autonomous and critical citizens. However, on many occasions, mathematics is seen as tedious and boring. The lack of research about flow and mathematics make us to consider which mathematical tasks provoke flow to a higher percentage of primary school students in regular classes and when they attend a noncompulsory math course. Due to availability reasons, a closed questionnaire was administered to a sample of 55 primary school students of a private school and 6 primary school students who attended to a non compulsory alternative mathematics course in Almeria. The questionnaire enables to identify whether a student experienced flow, just after concluding a task. At school, a comparison was made of the flow experienced when solving tasks from the textbook, paying attention to the teacher lecture, correcting the tasks and doing complementary tasks. As for the non-compulsory math course, flow experienced with the nine kinds of tasks proposed in the course was compared. Results show that students found that the tasks more interesting and useful and had a clearer idea on what they were asked at school. That explains the higher percentage of students who flew in this environment.
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