Happy + maths students =
bad + maths students: Study

Countries reporting higher levels of enjoyment and confidence among maths students don't do as well in the subject, the study suggests. The results for the United States hover around the middle of the pack, both in terms of enjoyment and in test scores.

In essence, happiness is overrated, says study author Tom Loveless.

"We might want to focus on the maths that kids are learning and just be a little less obsessed with the fact that they have to enjoy every minute of it," said Loveless, who directs the Brown centre and serves on a presidential advisory panel on maths.

"The implication is not 'Let's go make kids unhappy,' " he said. "It's 'Let's give kids better signals as to how they're performing, relative to the rest of the world.' "

Other countries do better than the US because they seem to expect more from students, he said. That could also explain why high performers in other nations express less confidence and enjoyment in maths. They consider their peer group to be star achievers.

Even efforts to make maths relevant may be irrelevant, says the study. Nations that try to teach maths in terms of daily life have the lowest test scores. All this is not easy to compute. Maths teachers typically don't avoid enjoyment, confidence and relevance in their maths lessons. They strive for those things.

Speaking on behalf of those teachers, one educator took exception to the study's conclusions. "If I'm a maths student and I don't perceive myself as confident, you think I'm going to major in it? The answer is no," said Francis "Skip" Fennell, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and another member of the federal maths panel.

"Is enjoyment important? You bet it is. Is confidence important? You bet it is," Fennell said. "If we don't have those variables, we can't compete." Yet Loveless says pleasing kids has come at the expense of mastering skills.

His findings come from the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, a test of fourth-graders and eighth-graders across the globe. Along with answering maths questions, students were asked whether they enjoyed maths and whether they usually did well in it.

The eighth-grade results reflected a common pattern: The 10 nations whose students enjoyed maths the most all scored below average; whereas, the bottom 10 nations on the enjoyment scale all excelled.

Japan, Hong Kong and the Netherlands were among those with high scores and lower enjoyment or confidence among students.

Within a given nation, the high-confidence kids did better than their peers. But that changed when students were compared with a different peer group. Even the least confident students in Singapore outscored the most confident Americans.

Loveless is not suggesting it makes sense to undermine kids' confidence or make maths revolting. But he says the US should rethink "the happiness factor," as he puts it.

Maths textbooks in the US, for example, tend to have colourful photos, charts and stories to please kids, he noted. In other nations, the texts strictly have maths.

Fennell said engaging, relevant lessons are important. But he agreed with Loveless that every lesson should be about teaching maths, not simply providing a fun class activity. AP

For more information visit the Brown Centre on Education Policy at http://www.brookings.edu/browncenter ; or the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics at http://www.nctm.org/ .