Mathematics Achievement and Mathematics Learning Strategies: Cognitive Competencies and Construct Differentiation.

Abstract Responding to a survey requires cognitive abilities similar to those for any other linguistic task. We argue that, when faced with a cognitively challenging task, individuals respond by simplifying the task, declining it, or performing it poorly. Using the 2003 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA 2003) data sets, we document that the extent of construct differentiation in students’ mathematics learning strategies is strongly associated with their level of mathematics achievement. Likewise, the higher the level of mathematics achievement, the lower is the probability of a non-response to the mathematics learning strategy questions. Finally, the higher the students’ level of mathematics achievement, the more varied were their responses to the learning strategies items. These associations were examined across 40 participating countries.

[1]  P. Alexander,et al.  Motivation and Performance Differences in Students’ Domain-Specific Epistemological Belief Profiles , 2005 .

[2]  J. Bieri.  Clinical and social judgment: The discrimination of behavioral information , 1975 .

[3]  Troels Lange.  Proceedings of the Fifth Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education , 2007 .

[4]  Jan de Leeuw,et al.  Nonlinear principal Component Analysis and Related Techniques , 2005 .

[5]  Allen L. Edwards,et al.  Techniques Of Attitude Scale Construction , 1958 .

[6]  Krista R. Muis.  Personal Epistemology and Mathematics: A Critical Review and Synthesis of Research , 2004 .

[7]  J. Bempechat,et al.  Cross-National Differences in Academic Achievement: Beyond Etic Conceptions of Children's Understandings , 1999 .

[8]  Robert W. Swezey,et al.  Complexity, managers, and organizations , 1986 .

[9]  Marlene Schommer.  Effects of beliefs about the nature of knowledge on comprehension. , 1990 .

[10]  Nancy C. Rhodes,et al.  Epistemological beliefs and mathematical text comprehension: believing it is simple does not make it so , 1992 .

[11]  E. Corte,et al.  Students' Mathematics-Related Belief Systems: Design and Analysis of a Questionnaire. , 2003 .

[12]  Marlene Schommer.  Epistemological development and academic performance among secondary students. , 1993 .

[13]  D. McNamara,et al.  The Impact of Science Knowledge, Reading Skill, and Reading Strategy Knowledge on More Traditional “High-Stakes” Measures of High School Students’ Science Achievement , 2007 .

[14]  J. Leeuw,et al.  The Gifi system of descriptive multivariate analysis , 1998 .

[15]  M. Hill,et al.  Nonlinear Multivariate Analysis. , 1990 .

[16]  M. Ronald Buckley,et al.  Cognitive complexity and the perceived dimensionality of pay satisfaction. , 1996 .

[17]  M. Schommer-Aikins,et al.  Ways of Knowing and Epistemological Beliefs: Combined effect on academic performance , 2006 .

[18]  Xin Ma,et al.  Hierarchical Linear Modelling of Student and School Effects on Academic Achievement , 2000 .

[19]  O. Köller.  Mathematical World Views and Achievement in Advanced Mathematics in Germany: Findings from TIMSS Population 3. , 2001 .